Reducing energy consumption for space heating by changing zone temperature: Pilot trial in luleå, Sweden

Abstract

The commercial building sector constitutes a signicant share (18%) of global energy consumption; HVAC accounts for 40% of that consumption. Thus, energy conservation in commercial buildings can help with reducing the operational cost, as well as decreasing global energy consumption. In this paper, we report ndings from a eld trial conducted in Luleå (Sweden), to reduce the energy consumption of a commercial oce building, by varying the HVAC set-point temperature. We developed a data-driven model of the building’s energy consumption to estimate baseline. The building model was further used for designing the eld trials by performing a simulation of the energy consumption under varied set-point temperature schedules. Based on the simulation results, a two week trial was conducted. We found that overall energy consumption of the building can be reduced by 5.23% per C reduction of set-point temperature. Moreover, we also collected thermal comfort feedback from the building occupant, and found that the comfort range of the occupants can be extended to the range of 21.5 C to 23.5 C than the currently used range of 22.0 C to 22.5 C.