Occupant behaviour related to energy use in the residential sector

Abstract

Buildings in Europe are the largest end use sector and especially residential buildings account for two thirds of this energy use. Despite the fact that building characteristics play a major role in a dwelling’s energy consumption, occupant characteristics and behaviour significantly affect this energy use as well. The Ecommon campaign monitored 32 residential dwellings for 6 months in the Netherlands, capturing quantitative (temperature, CO2, humidity, movement, boiler and ventilation electricity consumption, real time and total electricity and gas consumption on the meter) and quantitative data (comfort perception, actions taken like closing and opening windows, thermostat use, use and type of clothes, and metabolic activity). Additionally in the beginning of the campaign a survey was given to the tenants with questions on income, gender, education level, thermostat and ventilation preferences, bathing patterns and other related data. This paper describes the experimental set up of the campaign, the temperature and occupancy profiles for each type of room for the 32 dwellings and the findings on the clothing patterns and metabolic activity. Temperature profiles show that these dwellings have higher temperatures through the whole day than the common assumption of the daily average of 18 o C suggested for the calculations of the national simulation software. A method is demonstrated on how a combination of motion detection and CO2 can lead to reliable occupancy profiles.