Occupant Behaviours And Preferences Toward Comfort Level and Energy Use In Building

Abstract

The expeditiously growing world energy use has already increased the concerns over supply difficulties, consumption of energy resources and environmental impacts. Malaysian Government has spent about RM 2.5 billion for public buildings energy cost every year including nearly RM 400 million was spent for public universities energy cost alone. The study conducted to investigate the effect of occupant’s behaviour and preference that may affect comfort level and energy use in university buildings. A survey carried out to identified occupant’s behaviour and comfort related to energy consumption in the building. Sets of the questionnaire were prepared to be distributed among occupants of the building understudies. Based on the result, occupants prefers to have automated system for both lighting and ventilations to achieve comfort level in the classroom. Furthermore, highly correlated for automated system for both lighting and ventilation are consistently preferred by occupants; which indicate that occupants have consistently agree on automated system compared to standard switching. It could be concluded that occupant’s behaviour and preference can affect the energy use in the buildings.