Adaptive human behaviour and well-being in office buildings

Abstract

Abstract The constructions sector holds for a third of the global energy consumption and the energy demand in the world is constantly increasing. Since occupants spend over 80% of their time indoor they play a significant role in the operation phase of the buildings and their behaviour have a great impact on the energy consumption and indoor environmental quality. The purpose with this thesis is to improve the understanding of adaptive human behaviours in office buildings. Adaptive behaviours are undertaken to improve comfort that will entail changes in the indoor environmental quality that could trigger new behavioural actions. For each comfort aspect there are several different related actions and affecting factors. The relation between indoor environmental quality parameters and behavioural actions and energy usage is investigated with an aim to find the most energy demanding behaviours and how these can be optimised while still maintaining a comfortable indoor environment. A literature review of previous studies is performed, to map the relations between different parameters and behaviours. A questionnaire as a part of a possible subjective method is then developed from the findings. To investigate the behaviours and the impact on energy consumption and comfort in office buildings, a case study in Sweden was made by simulating combinations of energy consuming behaviours. The result show that behaviour connected to artificial light has the largest energy impact.Individual adjusted parameters and contextual factors has the greatest influence on the thermal comfort. Different combinations of adaptive behaviours affect the energy efficiency and indoor comfort to different degrees, such as different schedules connected to internal gains. The optimal solution is a combination of automatic systems to minimise the energy consumption when many occupants share the same space.