Use of BIM-based energy simulations to analyze the impact of occupant behavior on energy performance of commercial buildings
Date
2017
Authors
Yogi, Sanjeev, author
Olbina, Svetlana, advisor
Strong, Kelly, committee member
Malinin, Laura, committee member
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Abstract
The impact of occupant behavior on the energy performance of a building has been studied for a very long time. However, despite many studies, occupant behavior is difficult to understand due to its complex and unpredictable nature. Usually, occupant behavior is oversimplified and poorly represented; hence, one fails to make the correct assessment of the impact of occupant behavior on building energy performance. To make a precise prediction of the impact of occupant behavior on building energy consumption, it is imperative to develop better techniques in terms of analyzing occupant behavior and methods of research. Occupant behavior is stochastic in nature and varies widely depending on the characteristics of the building. Some occupants are proactive in saving energy while others are wasteful. Based on the workstyles of the occupants, occupant workstyles can be divided into three categories: austerity, standard and wasteful. As building characteristics influence both occupant behavior and energy performance of buildings, it is important to incorporate building characteristics into any building energy analysis to make the correct assessment of the impact of occupant behavior on the energy performance of the building. This can be achieved by using the building information modeling (BIM) based energy simulation for different categories of occupant behavior. This research used BIM to study and analyze the effect of different categories of occupant behavior on the energy performance of the building. To achieve this goal, most influential building characteristics and parameters of occupant behavior were identified; case study of occupant behavior on commercial building at Colorado. State University (CSU) was performed and guidelines to minimize the impact of wasteful workstyle on energy performance of the commercial buildings were developed. The identified most influential building characteristics of commercial buildings in this research were used to create the building information models in Revit which were then exported to DesignBuilder for simulations of annual building energy consumption. The identified parameters of occupant behavior for different types of workstyles were inputted in DesignBuilder before performing energy simulations. The simulation procedure was also illustrated in one of the commercial building at Colorado State University. The analysis of the simulation results showed that energy performance of the building is affected by the occupant behavior. The change of occupant workstyle from wasteful to austerity decreased the annual energy consumption between 41% and 58% while change of occupant workstyle from wasteful to standard decreased the annual energy consumption between 9% and 19%. Similarly, the decrease of annual energy consumption was between 33% and 45% due to change of workstyle from standard to austerity.
Description
Rights Access
Subject
occupant behavior
building information modeling