Tuesday, January 31, 2017: 11:15 AM-12:45 PM
Building Operation and Performance
Chair:
Bing Dong, University of Texas at San Antonio
Technical Committee: MTG.OBB Occupant Behavior in Buildings
CoSponsor: 7.5 Smart Building Systems
Building energy consumption is a systematic procedure influenced by not only engineering technologies, but also cultural concept, occupant behavior and others. People spend more than 90% of time in buildings and as a result occupant behavior becomes a leading factor that affects building energy consumption. Occupant behavior driven building operation is one critical way to reduce energy consumption in buildings. This seminar aims to highlight current state-of-art research on occupant behavior driven building operation by LBNL, Department of Energy, the University of Texas at San Antonio and Delos Living LLC. This seminar is part of IEA EBC Annex 66 activities.
1 An Introduction of ASHRAE Multidisciplinary Task Group on Occupant Behavior in Buildings
2 Development and Commercialization of Occupant-Centered Building Control Schemes: An Energy Policy Perspective
Recent literature suggests substantial energy savings and comfort improvements are possible from strategies that bring human preferences into the building operations and controls loop, using either direct, real-time occupant feedback; passive feedback through proxy occupant sensors; or a hybrid of these approaches. This presentation discusses BTO’s recently launched R&D effort at Department of Energy and supporting activities in the context of the current state-of-the-art in occupant-centered sensing and controls, and also outlines the place of this research area in the larger R&D vision for the BTO Sensors and Controls program.
3 Behavior Driven Transactive Energy for Residential Buildings
Transactive energy is trying to control energy production, distribution and consumption based on economic signals. To have a more competitive market, all involving parties have to participate in this market, including residential buildings. Dynamic electricity pricing is one solution to attract residential building to interact with this market. However, residential buildings' energy management systems are not responsive to electricity price changes. The focus of this research is to utilize energy use flexibilities in residential buildings, to make them more responsive to economic signals.
4 Occupant Preferences on Indoor Environmental Conditions in an Open Office
Thermal, acoustics and lighting account for the greatest sources of discomfort in offices. Seldom have these three factors have been studied concurrently and outside of controlled laboratory settings. We conducted a longitudinal investigation of how temperature, acoustics and lighting affect physiological, behavioral and emotional state in an open office while subjects perform real-world tasks. The environmental, physiological, behavioral and emotional data were captured using sensors, wearables and questionnaires. The data was analyzed to identify environmental factors that influence subject comfort and behavioral change; and to discover the interrelationship among combinations of environmental factors that impact occupants of open offices.