The Performance Gap in Energy-Efficient Office Buildings: How the Occupants Can Help?

Ali, Qadeer; Thaheem, Muhammad Jamaluddin; Ullah, Fahim; Sepasgozar, Samad M. E.

doi:10.3390/en13061480

Cited by 34 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 86 publications

(136 reference statements)

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“…Other studies [6,14,49] report that occupants turned off the installed MVHR (mechanical ventilation with heat recovery) and used windows to ventilate instead, with significant energy implications. Similar discrepancies were found with the operation of shading devices [6,22,23,88,90] in approximately 10% of the above studies, leading to higher or lower solar gains than modelled.…”

Section: Category Building Model Ingredient Occupant-related Performasupporting

confidence: 72%

“…Most of the publications (76%) used aggregated annual data on energy use, while 10% of studies used monthly data. The rest of the studies (14%) included high-resolution data, involving 5 min intervals [15,83], 15 min intervals [38,58,74], 30 min intervals [35], and daily measurements [22,48,89]. In terms of spatial granularity, studies on non-residential buildings focused on reporting energy use mostly per building and rarely per floor [51].…”

Section: Empirical Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Occupants opened windows more frequently or for longer periods (as compared to model assumptions) [5,6,12,14,18,22,28,32,37,45,52,54,55,58,67,72,77,79,82,89,95] Occupants turned off the installed MVHR (mechanical ventilation with heat recovery) and used windows instead for ventilation [6,14,49] Discrepancies between assumed and actual operation of shading devices resulting in the deviation of actual solar gains from model assumptions [5,21,22,89] Mechanical systems Set-point temperature, thermostat settings, system operating schedules and settings Higher actual indoor temperatures than those assumed in the model [6,9,11,14,15,18,29,37,53,55,58,75,79,82,90,101,104,107,…”

Section: Category Building Model Ingredient Occupant-related Performamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Occupant density and/or schedule Discrepancies between actual and assumed occupant density or schedule lead to higher or lower use of IT equipment, lighting and appliances [7,16,[21][22][23]30,35,36,38,39,41,42,47,50,51,57,59,60,65,67,110,111] Use of secondary heating/cooling, such as electric heaters [95] Internal heat load Occupant density and/or schedule Standard occupancy schedules imply high heat gains, which can result in underestimation/ [16,17,75] overestimation of energy use for heating/cooling…”

Section: Category Building Model Ingredient Occupant-related Performamentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Role of Occupants in Buildings’ Energy Performance Gap: Myth or Reality?

et al. 2021

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Buildings’ expected (projected, simulated) energy use frequently does not match actual observations. This is commonly referred to as the energy performance gap. As such, many factors can contribute to the disagreement between expectations and observations. These include, for instance, uncertainty about buildings’ geometry, construction, systems, and weather conditions. However, the role of occupants in the energy performance gap has recently attracted much attention. It has even been suggested that occupants are the main cause of the energy performance gap. This, in turn, has led to suggestions that better models of occupant behavior can reduce the energy performance gap. The present effort aims at the review and evaluation of the evidence for such claims. To this end, a systematic literature search was conducted and relevant publications were identified and reviewed in detail. The review entailed the categorization of the studies according to the scope and strength of the evidence for occupants’ role in the energy performance gap. Moreover, deployed calculation and monitoring methods, normalization procedures, and reported causes and magnitudes of the energy performance gap were documented and evaluated. The results suggest that the role of occupants as significant or exclusive contributors to the energy performance gap is not sufficiently substantiated by evidence.

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Section: Category Building Model Ingredient Occupant-related Performasupporting

confidence: 72%

Section: Empirical Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Category Building Model Ingredient Occupant-related Performamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Category Building Model Ingredient Occupant-related Performamentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Role of Occupants in Buildings’ Energy Performance Gap: Myth or Reality?

et al. 2021

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“…The measured performance also provides feedback to occupants, thus assisting the transition of occupant behavior to an energy-conscious mindset and enhancing the success of the applied energy strategies and further assisting in closing the performance gap [14]. In particular, performance monitoring can be exploited to develop real-time and feedforward information strategies to drive more rational energy-related occupant behavior [15,16].…”

Section: Why Measure and Verify?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Measurement and Verification of Zero Energy Settlements: Lessons Learned from Four Pilot Cases in Europe

et al. 2020

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Measurement and verification (M&V) has become necessary for ensuring intended design performance. Currently, M&V procedures and calculation methods exist for the assessment of Energy Conservation Measures (ECM) for existing buildings, with a focus on reliable baseline model creation and savings estimation, as well as for reducing the computation time, uncertainties, and M&V costs. There is limited application of rigorous M&V procedures in the design, delivery and operation of low/zero energy dwellings and settlements. In the present paper, M&V for four pilot net-zero energy settlements has been designed and implemented. The M&V has been planned, incorporating guidance from existing protocols, linked to the project development phases, and populated with lessons learned through implementation. The resulting framework demonstrates that M&V is not strictly linked to the operational phase of a project but is rather an integral part of the project management and development. Under this scope, M&V is an integrated, iterative process that is accompanied by quality control in every step. Quality control is a significant component of the M&V, and the proposed quality control procedures can support the preparation and implementation of automated M&V. The proposed framework can be useful to project managers for integrating M&V into the project management and development process and explicitly aligning it with the rest of the design and construction procedures.

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