The energy performance certificate (EPC) is an information and market tool for climate protection that will foster the market for energy-efficient living spaces. It allows potential renters and buyers to compare the energy performance of buildings and provides recommendations on how the energy efficiency of the building can be improved. However, there is potential for improvement in terms of the user-friendliness of the certificate and the consideration of occupant behaviour in the modelling of building energy use. Hence, the end-users of EPCs, such as building owners, tenants, building occupants and building managers, play a crucial role regarding the redesign of EPCs because learning about their needs can contribute to improving the certificate and exploring their everyday energy behaviour allows them to make more accurate assumptions in the modelling of building energy.
This report is a synthesis of the findings from the four user-related tasks in the ePANACEA project, which are the stakeholder analysis, the user-needs analysis, the acceptance testing (first and final acceptance test) and the exploration of occupants’ energy behaviour. Each research step is briefly recapped (objectives, methods and highlights of the results). Furthermore, the report shows how the research steps (except for the final acceptance test) have influenced the development of new EPC summary pages during the project lifetime. The final chapter provides recommendations for the next generation of EPC (focusing on the content and presentation of content in the certificate) that stem from the user-related tasks, including the outcomes from the final acceptance test.