Reducing Energy Consumption for Space Heating by Changing Zone Temperature

Abstract

The commercial building sector constitutes a significant share (18%) of global energy consumption; HVAC accounts for 40% of that consumption. Thus, energy conservation in commercial buildings can help with reducing the operational cost, as well as decreasing global energy consumption. In this paper, we report findings from a field trial conducted in Luleå (Sweden), to reduce the energy consumption of a commercial office building, by varying the HVAC set-point temperature. We developed a data-driven model of the building's energy consumption to estimate baseline. The building model was further used for designing the field trials by performing a simulation of the energy consumption under varied set-point temperature schedules. Based on the simulation results, a two week trial was conducted. We found that overall energy consumption of the building can be reduced by 5.23% per °C reduction of set-point temperature. Moreover, we also collected thermal comfort feedback from the building occupant, and found that the comfort range of the occupants can be extended to the range of 21.5 °C to 23.5 °C than the currently used range of 22.0 °C to 22.5 °C