THE IMPACT OF OCCUPANCY VARIATION ON BUILDING OPERATION, ENERGY CONSUMPTION, AND INDOOR ENVIRONMENT QUALITY

Abstract

The importance of energy consumption and indoor environment quality (IEQ) is increasing. With various variables affecting these two factors, “Occupancy” is identified as one of the key elements. Though several studies have been conducted to study the relation of occupancy and these factors, few have been conducted on office universities in tropical climates. Thus, this study aims to identify the impact of occupancy variation on the electrical and cooling energy consumption as well as on the IEQ in a university office of a tropical country.

A case study on a university office building, Ventus, in National University of Singapore (NUS) was adopted. Wi-Fi connection counts (in representation of occupancy numbers) and energy consumption for electrical and cooling consumption are taken across a total of 72 days during different phases of coronavirus (COVID-19). While the indoor air quality (IAQ) parameters across 12 days during the third phase of COVID-19. The results suggest that occupancy variation has a significant positive correlation with both electrical and cooling energy consumption. Also, the change in general building occupancy levels also influenced the overall IAQ of the different locations in the building. In general, with a higher occupancy level, temperature, relative humidity, carbon dioxide and fine particulate matter decreases. However, as the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems are operational during working hours, it is one of the influencing factors of the results. Overall, the results show the potential of using occupancy data for better scheduling of HVAC so as to obtain energy savings and provide better indoor environment for the occupants.