Occupant behavior in energy efficiency : a case study in Sydney

Buildings are one of the main energy intensity consumers in a country. Their high rates of energy use are directly related with the performance of their occupants’ activities and the complexity of the required systems to address them. These variables are normally predicted during the design stage of a building, where design teams forecast the total energy use that a specific building will send during their operations stage and even during their whole life-cycle. Meanwhile, literature shows that by comparing the real energy performance results with the predicted ones, there is a substantial difference. This difference is commonly related with low levels of maintenance as well as the way occupants behave when interacting with the systems present in buildings. Therefore, the way occupants behave when using energy is the most impacting factor in the performance of a building. As a result, this paper presents a case study of how occupants influence the energy use of an existing building, using a simulation model that analyses occupant interaction with different building systems, having as baseline the Australian National Construction Building Code. In order to determine the annual energy performance and the GHG emissions of a traditional Australian building in Sydney, it was developed a model using the simulation tools DesignBuilder and EnergyPlus This case study estimates the impact occupants will have in energy use, by varying some parameters related with the system that occupants normally interact with in buildings, such as lighting, air conditioning, appliances and windows.