Bayesian Inference of Dwellings Energy Signature at National Scale: Case of the French Residential Stock

Cities take a central place in today’s energy landscape. Urban Buildings Energy Modeling (UBEM) is identified as a promising approach for energy planning and optimization in cities and districts. It generally relies on the use of Building Archetypes, i.e., simplified deterministic models for categorized building typologies. However, this implies large assumptions which may accumulate and induce significant bias on energy consumption estimates. In this work, we address this issue with static stochastic models whose parameters are inferred over national thermo-energy data using Bayesian Inference. We analyze inference results and validate them with a panel of standard indicators. Then, we provide comparative results with deterministic building archetypes and stock data from the TABULA European project. Comparisons between heat loss coefficients show relative coherence between building categories, but highlight some significant bias between both approaches. This bias is also shown in the comparative result of a Monte Carlo simulation using inferred stochastic models for a 10331 dwellings stock. In conclusion, inferred stochastic models show interesting insights over the French dwellings stock and potential for district energy simulation. All code and data involved in this study are released in an open repository.