Abstract
In this paper, several models are integrated into a thermal model to study the impact of occupants’ behaviors on the building energy consumption. An air flow model is developed to simulate ventilation related to the occupant’s patterns of window opening and closing. An electric consumption model is developed to simulate the usage pattern and the electricity input to household electric appliances. The thermostat setpoint temperature and window shading schemes are varied with different occupants’ behavior norms and are included in the model. The simulation was applied to a typical household located in the city of Oshawa in Ontario, Canada. The results show that the window opening has the greatest impact on the energy consumption during the heating season, and the shading scheme has the greatest impact on the A/C energy consumption during the cooling season. The electricity consumption of the A/C can be significantly reduced by appropriately applying the shading and opening schemes and resetting the thermostat setpoint temperature to a slightly higher degree. Keeping the windows closed and allowing the solar radiation to be transmitted through the window in winter help reduce the energy usage to heat the house.
Highlights
Occupants’ behaviors have a great impact on the building energy consumption as well as the peak loads typically experienced during the cooling season in summer time
From the comparison of case No 5 in Table 6, it appears that the ventilation rate of the house has the greatest impact on the heating energy consumption, and the shading schemes
This paper presented a mathematical model that considers the building envelop, window shading, and opening schemes, and thermostat setpoint temperature and usage pattern of the electric appliances, e.g., the impact on energy consumption and power demand due to different occupants’ behaviors related to window opening and shading schemes against the temperature and solar radiation, thermostat adjusting against the outdoor air temperature, and occupants’ preference on using the electrical appliances can be simulated
Summary
Occupants’ behaviors have a great impact on the building energy consumption as well as the peak loads typically experienced during the cooling season in summer time. The dynamic changes on how wide the window will be opened and the level of shading, as well as continuously adjusting thermostat setpoint are all very important factors that affect the thermal load and the final energy consumption of the buildings. To overcome limitations mentioned above, this paper introduces a holistic and integrated model (BMEOE), which considers the building enclosure, mechanical system, electrical appliances, occupants behavior, and external environment to simulate the building energy consumption. The model is applied to a typical house located in the city of Oshawa (located 55 Km east of Toronto, ON, Canada), to examine the impact of occupants’ behavior on the energy consumption in residential buildings. The air flow through one opening of the window for type no. 2 is calculated as: HN
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