Potential Energy Risks of High-Efficiency Dwellings: Lessons from Four Contemporary Rural Housing Cases in Scotland

This study, through a hybrid approach to post-occupancy evaluation (POE) of four types of high-energy-efficiency housing in rural Scotland, explores the manifestation, formation mechanism, and mitigation pathways of energy risks in high-energy-efficiency housing from environmental and socioeconomic dimensions. The findings reveal a “high-efficiency paradox”: better fabric performance and lower heating demand do not guarantee reduced carbon emissions, fuel poverty alleviation, or energy resilience. Actual energy risks are formed by the combined effects of multiple factors, including building size, energy infrastructure, resident characteristics, energy prices, and policy, exhibiting a clear systemic coupling characteristic. The study further verifies that, in the context of rural Scotland, relying solely on indicators such as EPC may lead to misjudgements of housing sustainability. Heating demand, total energy consumption, carbon emissions, and energy expenditure exhibit a partially decoupled relationship. Thus, rural housing sustainability should shift from a technically efficient approach to a comprehensive strategy integrating design, infrastructure, affordability, and social equity. The study proposes context-specific mitigation pathways including multi-source energy systems, place-sensitive policies, socio-economic support, and a multi-criteria assessment framework, providing empirical references for rural housing energy transition and energy risk governance.