HVAC energy savings, thermal comfort and air quality for occupant-centric control through a side-by-side experimental study
Meng Kong, Bing Dong, Rongpeng Zhang, Zheng O’Neill
Abstract
Building sensing technologies have evolved rapidly in the last two decades in aid of monitoring building environment and energy system performance. A series of occupancy sensing systems were developed to track the occupant behavior in the indoor space. Occupancy-based building system control is defined as a control method that adjusts the building system operation schedules and setpoints based on the measured occupant behavior and has been identified as a smart building control strategy that can improve building energy efficiency as well as occupant comfort. Some studies demonstrated energy-saving potential and comfort-maintaining capability from occupancy-based control. This study adopted a first-of-its-kind side-by-side experimental approach to quantify the performance of the occupancy-based control in commercial buildings. Three state-of-the-art occupancy sensing technologies were integrated into the real-time Heating, Ventilation, and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) system control in this study. Their detection accuracy and its effectiveness on energy-saving and thermal comfort were analyzed. It was found that the occupancy-based control can maintain good thermal comfort and perceived indoor air quality with a satisfaction ratio greater than 80%. Although the daily energy-saving varied with occupancy sensor accuracy and outdoor environment conditions, the weekly averaged energy saving was between 17 and 24%.