2026

Rehman, Hassam Ur; Ramesh, Rakesh

As climate change worsens energy insecurity, resilience to long-term blackouts in cold climates is increasingly critical. Blackouts can compromise indoor heating, leading to serious habitability, health, and survivability risks. Yet, most existing regulatory frameworks lack clear definitions of minimum habitability and survivability thresholds, and often under examine the role of demographic and social factors. This study presents a novel, integrated, human-centric method that combines a single-stage occupants survey—designed to assess energy resilience awareness, occupant-defined habitability and survivability thresholds, and key demographic factors—with a detailed building performance simulation model. Survey data was collected from 378 participants residing in a cold climate region (Finland) and is integrated with simulations of both old and renovated residential buildings, incorporating various passive and active energy systems, including building envelope, photovoltaics (PV), battery storage, and heat pumps. This interdisciplinary approach enables a comprehensive techno-economic analysis that effectively bridges social perceptions with technical assessments of energy resilience. Moreover, a new set of energy resilience indicators is proposed, specifically tailored for buildings in cold regions. These indicators form the basis of a color-based classification scheme used to visualize simulation outcomes and compare the resilience performances of the buildings. Survey results show that heating (i.e., habitability) is the top need in Finland, followed by electrical loads (i.e., survivability). Habitability thresholds differ by age, gender, location, and building type, ranging from 15 °C to 19 °C. Older buildings fail to meet these needs, especially for people over 50 years old. In passive conditions, dissatisfaction among older adults reaches 100 % and elevated psychological stress values. Renovations and renewable energy systems greatly improve resilience, reducing low heating risks and physiological stress—though at a 94 % cost increase. Dissatisfaction with habitability drops from 100 % to 1 %, and survivability improves from 0 % to 98 %. For adults aged 41–61+, dissatisfaction drops to 90 % (men) and 98 % (women) with building renovation, and with PV-battery systems, it falls to 0 % for both. This research offers a transferable, occupant-centered framework for assessing energy resilience, bridging technical, social, and economic dimensions to guide building adaptation in other cold climates and Nordic countries.