Energy efficiency in Australia : occupant behaviour

One of the main aspects that has to be carefully accounted and controlled in sustainable buildings is energy use, which is directly related to greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions. During a building life cycle, the operation is the most energy intensive stage due to the presence of technical systems, equipment, occupants, etc. In green buildings (GB), design teams predict the expected energy performance of a building at the design stage, by means of a building energy simulation model, and study the most sustainable solutions in order to minimize the use of energy before the construction process occurs, so as to reduce the impacts that the operation stage will have in the environment. Meanwhile, researchers by comparing real energy performance results with the predicted ones have identified significant differences between them. These differences can be related to low maintenance, inefficiencies and occupants. Nevertheless, the way occupants behave in terms of energy use is the most impacting factor to the performance of a building (Norford et al., 1994). Therefore, this chapter presents the influence occupants have in the energy use of a building using a simulation model that analyses occupant interaction with different building systems, having as baseline the Australian National Construction Building Code (ABCB, 2016) requirements for office buildings. The model has been developed using the simulation tools DesignBuilder and EnergyPlus in order to determine the annual energy performance of a typical Australian office building in Sydney and consequent GHG emissions. By varying certain parameters it is possible to estimate the impact occupants will have in the energy use of a building as a whole and which system will be most affected by their action.