Validation of Occupants’ Behaviour Models for Indoor Quality Parameter and Energy Consumption Prediction

Abstract

Occupants’ behaviour related to building control system plays a significant role to achieve thermal comfort and air quality in naturally-ventilated buildings. Generally, the published models of occupant's behavior are not validated, meaning that the predictive power has not yet been tested. For this reason, the validation of occupant's behavioral models is an issue that is gaining importance.In this paper validation was carried out through dynamic Building Energy Performance simulation (BEPS); behavioral models of windows opening and thermostats set-point published in literature were implemented in a dynamic BEPS software and the obtained results in terms of temperature, relative humidity and CO2 concentration were compared to real measurements. Through this comparison it will be possible to verify the accuracy of the implemented behavioral models.The models were able to reproduce the general tendencies in the measured temperatures but the simulation results diverged from the measured CO2 concentrations and relative humidity.