Abstract
In the residential sector, householders play an active role in regulating the indoor climate via diverse control measures such as the operation of air-conditioners or windows. The main research question asked in this paper is whether control decisions made by householders are rational and effective in terms of achieving comfort and energy efficiency. Based on a field study in South Korea, this paper explores how a HVAC control strategy for high-rise apartment buildings can affect occupant comfort and adaptive behavior. Two different control strategies: (1) occupant control (OC), where occupants were allowed to freely operate the HVAC system and (2) comfort-zone control (CC), where the operation of the HVAC system was determined by the researcher, based on a pre-defined comfort zone, were applied to, and tested within the participating households in summer. The impact of the two control strategies on indoor thermal environments, thermal comfort, and occupant adaptive behavior were analyzed. We find that the CC strategy is more energy/comfort efficient than OC because: (1) comfort was be achieved at a higher indoor temperature, and (2) unnecessary control behaviors leading to cooling load increase can be minimized, which have major implications for energy consumption reduction in the residential sector.
Highlights
In addition to improving energy consumption efficiency, a primary focus area of building design and operation is the maintenance of the health and comfort of building occupants who stay indoors for at least 80% of the day [1]
In order to objectively verify the impact of the control strategy of the HVAC system on occupant comfort and associated behaviors, the occupant control (OC) mode utilizing the existing recommended indoor setpoint air temperature (26 ◦ C) in the Korean regulatory body was set as the control-group condition, while the comfort-zone control (CC) strategy based on a comfort range derived by considering the actual occupant thermal comfort status was set as the experimental-group condition
Changes in the physical indoor thermal environmental parameters, occupant thermal comfort indices, generation of adaptive behavior, and HVAC system operation status were comparatively analyzed in accordance with the two control modes addressed above
Summary
In addition to improving energy consumption efficiency, a primary focus area of building design and operation is the maintenance of the health and comfort of building occupants who stay indoors for at least 80% of the day [1] In this regard, occupant thermal comfort is considered as one of the essential criteria when evaluating building performance [2]. Occupant adaptive behaviors may directly affect the energy consumption of a building, and maladaptive behavior is often associated with excessive energy consumption [10] In this regard, recent studies have attempted to determine the causal parameters driving occupant adaptive behavior in order to improve the predictive skill of building energy models and simulations [12,13,14,15]
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