Assessing the Influence of Occupancy Factors on Energy Performance in US Small Office Buildings

Abstract

Office buildings are responsible for about 35% of the total electricity in the US and over 70% of building energy consumption occurs during occupancy periods. Therefore, understanding occupancy behavior is crucial for reducing building energy consumption. However, given the stochastic nature of occupant behavior, identifying which occupancy parameters have the most impact on energy consumption poses a considerable challenge. This study aims to investigate and quantify the impact of various occupancy parameters on the energy performance of a US small-sized office building using an EnergyPlus-based nationwide energy simulation. First, dynamic occupancy schedules are created based on different occupancy parameters using an agent-based model. Next, the generated dynamic occupancy schedules are integrated into a small office building model from the Department of Energy’s prototypes. This creates a dataset of occupancy parameters and building energy performance across various climate zones. Finally, various feature selection and statistical analysis methods are applied to the generated dataset. This helps identify significant occupancy parameters and quantify their impact on building energy performance across different climate zones. According to the results of the study, buildings located in cool marine, mixed marine, and warm marine climate zones had lower total energy consumption compared to other zones. Additionally, feature selection methods identified “Occupant Density” as the primary significant variable impacting energy consumption, across all climate zones. These findings offer valuable insights into the influential occupancy parameters across various climate zones, highlighting the importance of tailoring occupancy schedules to enhance energy efficiency. They provide practical guidance that can be directly applied to optimize energy consumption and achieve significant energy savings in small office settings with different weather conditions.