Impact of Occupant Behaviour (OB) on building energy use and thermal comfort: From stochastic modelling and occupant profiling to interdisciplinary user engagement

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Design and Construction of an nZEB in Piedmont Region, North Italy

Nowadays in nZEB designing it is fundamental taking into account both the energy and the economic perspective right from the preliminary phases of the project. Success in realizing nZEB lies in finding the right balance between energy performances, architectural quality and costs, which include investment, maintenance and running costs, incurred by the project owner during a defined period. This paper analyzes CorTau House in terms of architectural aspects, energy performances and economic viability. It represents a significant Italian design experience in which the architectural quality of the refurbishment of a traditional rural building is combined with high-performing energy solutions

Graphical visualization of behavioural patterns in relation to indoor environment quality and energy use

In this paper, the authors provide a general overview on the methodological framework behind the monitoring and evaluation strategies of Mobistyle project that are used as reference for the demonstration cases. The strategies identify parameters that need to be evaluated during several phases regarding the impact (energy, IEQ, health, behavioural patterns) and the strategy (effectiveness of the process) of the project, and how these parameters can be numerically evaluated. In particular, the paper focuses on the graphical visualization method for behavioural patterns analysis in relation to indoor environment quality and energy use. The proposed approach is illustrated based on measured data from one Mobistyle Project case study i.e. a hotel for long term stay located in Turin, Italy

Occupant behavior lifestyles in a residential nearly zero energy building: Effect on energy use and thermal comfort

Occupant behavior is one of the most significant driving factors of uncertainty in the prediction of building energy use. Large performance gaps have been individuated between residential buildings with the same properties and similar climate conditions. Comfort criteria settings by the occupants and their interaction with the envelope and the systems directly affect the operation of buildings and related energy uses. This study employs building simulations to demonstrate the potential impact of occupant behavior lifestyles and different household compositions on energy use and thermal comfort conditions in a residential nearly zero energy building under-construction. In detail, occupant behavior was classified into three lifestyles: low consumer, standard consumer, and high consumer. The analysis considered energy-related behavioral patterns (regulation of heating and cooling set-points, energy use for equipment, lighting and domestic hot water, ventilation rates, regulation of window blinds) and highlighted key variables, which need to be addressed by decision-makers of behavioral change programs for conscious use of nearly zero energy buildings. While predictive studies concerning energy performance investigated mainly nearly zero energy building models that addressed the optimization of the building features themselves, this research reveals the urgent need of referencemodels related to human behavioral issues

Benefits and disadvantages of existing smart heating control systems: a critical survey

Residential buildings are still responsible of a higher share of global energy consumption, in particular, the main amount of energy (68%) is consumed for space heating and cooling. In this context, an important goal is the development of indoor climate control strategies that may help to reduce high-energy consumption. Thanks to the ICT development, the global market is already trying to answer to this necessity. A “smart home” should be equipped with computing and information technology, which responds to the needs of the occupants and works to promote their comfort, convenience, security. Several “smart heating” controls have been developed in the last few years, initially in American countries and after in Europe. In particular, these smart heating control systems act on temperature set points and schedules. The available “smart” control options and algorithms radically vary among the products presented in the market, shifting from memorization of user habits to interaction with other variables as windows openings and occupancy. This paper represents a survey of current temperature control systems available: they are compared and critically analyzed in their benefits and disadvantages. In particular, this study regards technical elements and heating system requirements, remote and smart control options, costs and installation procedures. Finally, possible upgrades are also considered in the perspective of a more persuasive technology and user awareness of energy consumption

Peer comparison as motivational trigger to save energy in office environment

To ensure a sustainable energy development in the commercial sector, attitudes and human behaviour need to be modified towards a more efficient and conscious energy usage. The goal of this research is to assess evaluations and to test the effectiveness in reducing office electricity consumption. The aim of the engagement campaign is to provide employees with a user-friendly tool that improves awareness of their energy behaviour in the workplace, enabling better management via the visualization of consumption and persuasive tailored information on office electricity use. In this study, the system was tested on an office building in Italy, participating to the campaign from February 2014 to January 2016. A combination of persuasive communication strategies such as graphical real-time and historical feedback based on real data and comparison tools to encourage competitiveness against "similar" employees were provided to users through a user-friendly interface. In addition, personalized energy saving prompts were sent via web-newsletters to the users. The study concludes that energy related persuasive communication is effective in reducing electricity consumption in dwellings but employees in this study did not demonstrate "normative" comparison as potentially motivation form of feedback

Impact of behavioural patterns on the energy use of a residential nearly-zero energy building

Occupant behaviour (OB) is one of the most significant sources of uncertainty in the prediction of building energy use by simulation programs. Extended literature reviews confirm that the accurate evaluation of occupant behaviour is a key factor for bridging the gap between predicted and actual energy performance of buildings. Indeed, occupant behaviour affects the real building energy use directly and indirectly by regulating the heating and cooling set point, the ventilation rate, the window blind position, turning on/off or dimming lights, turning on/off equipment, and setting indoor thermal, acoustic and visual comfort criteria. Previous field studies measured the impact of occupant-driven parameters on energy consumptions in residential buildings means to data gathering set ups and monitoring campaigns. The outcomes showed large discrepancies in the effect of occupant behaviour among houses in a community and across communities, with corresponding large impacts on energy use. In detail, some studies have shown that the behaviour of the household members may lead to differences in energy consumptions of over 300%. In second place, in the past twenty years, more stringent energy codes and environmental standards have led to many high performance building designs that use less energy. In these kinds of buildings, once optimized the envelope and building systems, the unpredictable loads generated by the occupants gain greater influence than in a house whose envelope-driven loads dominate the consumption profile. Indeed, the success of high energy performing design strategies is now heavily dependent on how occupants interact with the building. This study employs and compares building simulations carried out in (i) IDA ICE (4.6.2)and (ii) Energyplus (version 8.4) to demonstrate the potential impact of occupant behaviour lifestyles on energy use in a residential nZEB under-construction, the so-called CorTau House in North Italy. In detail, occupant behaviour was classified into three lifestyles: low consumer, standard consumer and high consumer. The analysis considered energy-related behavioural patterns (regulation of heating and cooling set points; energy use for equipment, lighting and DHW; ventilation rates; regulation of window blinds) and highlighted key variables, which need to be addressed by decision-makers of behavioural change programs for conscious use of nZEBs. The results obtained in this study reveal that the energy-related occupant behaviour lifestyles significantly influence the energy performance of the analysed residential nearly-zero energy building. Thus, a building can only be considered a nearly-zero energy building if zero-capital actions related to the behavioural change of the occupants become as important as technological high performing solutions for the building features. Indeed, if the behaviour of the inhabitants is energy wasting, it might be unmanageable to reach the nearly-zero energy target, even if the building itself is defined "high performing"; the occupants need to be proactive in saving energy as well. The most influencing occupant driven variables on final energy consumptions are related to the equipment use in first place and secondly to the lighting use. Indeed, the unpredictable loads related to these variables gain greater influence than in buildings whose envelope-driven loads dominate the consumptions profile. Finally, the comparison of the abovementioned simulation softwares showed that the overall results for the different final energy uses were slightly higher in IDA ICE than in Energyplus (Figure 1). It is worth noting that the final energy use for domestic hot water was calculated separately in the Energy Plus model and this led to significantly lower values related to the "Heating+DHW" energy use with respect to the IDA ICE model

Benefits and disadvantages of existing smart heating control systems: a critical survey

Residential buildings are still responsible of a higher share of global energy consumption, in particular, the main amount of energy (68%) is consumed for space heating and cooling. In this context, an important goal is the development of indoor climate control strategies that may help to reduce high-energy consumption. Thanks to the ICT development, the global market is already trying to answer to this necessity. A “smart home” should be equipped with computing and information technology, which responds to the needs of the occupants and works to promote their comfort, convenience, security. Several “smart heating” controls have been developed in the last few years, initially in American countries and after in Europe. In particular, these smart heating control systems act on temperature set points and schedules. The available “smart” control options and algorithms radically vary among the products presented in the market, shifting from memorization of user habits to interaction with other variables as windows openings and occupancy. This paper represents a survey of current temperature control systems available: they are compared and critically analyzed in their benefits and disadvantages. In particular, this study regards technical elements and heating system requirements, remote and smart control options, costs and installation procedures. Finally, possible upgrades are also considered in the perspective of a more persuasive technology and user awareness of energy consumption

Towards Nearly Zero Energy Buıldıng: Challenge Of Mediterranean Region

The challenge of planning and building high performing buildings, towards nearly zero-energy buildings, is of increasing interest in South Europe and in Mediterranean countries. This challenge was taken up and carried forward by North Europe and Scaninavian countries, who developed specific design methodologies and approaches referred to cold climates. These experiences are surely interesting and should be critically analyzed; however, the specifics of Mediterranean climates require a detailed revisitation of the approaches aimed at reducing energy consumptions of buildings in which winter heating loads and summer cooling loads have to be balanced. In this paper a general introduction about the complexity of building design in Mediterranean climates is proposed and an example of a real nZEB in Italy is presented