Thermal comfort and energy savings of personal comfort systems in low temperature office: A field study

Abstract

Personal Comfort Systems (PCS) in conjunction, working together with less intensified conditioning ambient environments, could provide acceptable micro-environments for each occupant’s workstation. The study aims to investigate long-term thermal comfort, individual preferences, and energy consumption in a low temperature office with only local PCS heating. Eight subjects participated in a 42-day field test in an office room. Room ambient temperature was always below 18 °C. During the test period, four types of heating devices with individual control are available to analyze thermal comfort of subjects under different combinations of PCS. Energy consumption of the PCS was continuously monitored. Net energy savings were analyzed by contrasting the case using PCS under low temperature environment and the case under normal temperature heating. The results showed that when PCS was used, subjects’ thermal acceptability improved significantly. The subjects’ thermal sensation vote (TSV) increased, while their thermal comfort vote (TCV) maintained constant at 0.59. Compared to centralized heating, PCS costs no more than 304.2 W average power per occupant during occupied hours, saving at least 52.7% of heating energy.