Occupants' space heating behaviour in a simulation-intervention loop

eViz is a large UK research project, which aims to reduce building energy demand through visualizations. In eViz, building performance simulation is adopted to visualise the impact of occupants' behavioural change 011 the energy consumption of their buildings. I11 this project, occupants' space heating behaviour is considered to have significant energy saving potential, due to its great impact 011 the house energy consumption during the wintertime.This paper presents some initial results from the eViz project. Firstly, a simulation-intervention loop is established, which drives behavioural change of building occupants to save energy. In this loop, building performance simulation is used to visualise the impact. Secondly, the result from a thorough review of relevant literatures supports that occupants' operation of space heating in actual buildings is a complex behaviour, as 27 factors could possibly influence this behaviour. However, in traditional building performance simulation, most of these factors have not been seriously considered, when modelling occupants' space heating behaviour. Therefore, lastly, to handle this issue in eViz. a preference-based simulation approach is chosen and the use of this approach in building performance simulation is demonstrated in this paper, using an example room.