Occupant-centric dynamic heating demand in residential buildings based on a temporal-spatial combined quantification method

Abstract

The occupant-centric Part-Time-Local-Space heating mode holds paramount significance for the carbon neutralization of buildings in China. It ensures a harmonious match between heat supply and personal demand in both temporal and spatial dimensions, effectively reducing space heating consumption. However, current studies predominantly focus on the temporal-spatial heating demands of occupants at the room scale, but the zonal scale heating demands remain inadequately explored. Thus, we developed a temporal-spatial combined quantification method to analyze residents’ indoor movement characteristics. It aims to identify the localized subzones in a room where residents have prolonged stays, with spatial boundaries of subzones entirely defined based on high-resolution positioning data. Using this approach, we analyzed the temporal-spatial heating demands of four households under single- and multiple-resident scenarios in typical rooms. Furthermore, we discussed the differences in demand between different heating modes. Results revealed distinctive “local space” demand features in living room and “part time” demand features in dining room. The areas of sofa subzones generally occupied less than 15% of a room (within 4 m2), and stay durations in dining-table subzones ranged from 0.3 h to 1.2 h. Considering the entire monitored rooms, residents occupied only 4.1∼12.1% in space with 10.7∼47.9% in time per day, highlighting the significant energy-saving potential of the occupant-centric Part-Time-Local-Space heating mode. This evaluation provides a reference for the design and implementation of personalized environmental control system.