Abstract for:The low carbon transition in the UK building sector must make financial sense: a hybrid system dynamics- bottom up modelling framework

The building sector contributes significantly to global energy consumption and CO2 emissions. It is urgent to reduce them through the retrofit of existing buildings and improved new building designs. The investments for energy saving retrofits in public and private sector buildings must make financial sense and have an attractive return on investment. The diffusion of related energy performance contracts is instrumental in improving the performance of the building stock. This paper develops a hybrid bottom up and system dynamics modelling framework to assess the energy savings potential and related changes in Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) of building archetypes that are representative of the total office stock. The bottom up modelling is used to provide estimates of potential energy savings. This serves as input to the system dynamics diffusion model which is developed to assess the diffusion potential of environmental performance contracts. The framework will provide the basis for scenario and policy analysis.