Occupancy measurement in commercial office buildings for demand-driven control applications—A survey and detection system evaluation

TLDR

Commercial office buildings, the largest floor area in developed countries, consume substantial energy for occupant comfort, making them prime targets for demand‑driven control, yet lack fine‑grained occupancy data that hampers such measures. This paper reviews existing occupancy detection systems used in buildings. The authors examine common systems for occupancy detection to assess their suitability for demand‑driven control. Experimental evaluation of chair sensors in an office building demonstrates their ability to provide fine‑grained occupancy information for demand‑driven control applications.

Abstract

Commercial office buildings represent the largest in floor area in most developed countries and utilize substantial amount of energy in the provision of building services to satisfy occupants’ comfort needs. This makes office buildings a target for occupant-driven demand control measures, which have been demonstrated as having huge potential to improve energy efficiency. The application of occupant-driven demand control measures in buildings, most especially in the control of thermal, visual and indoor air quality providing systems, which account for over 30% of the energy consumed in a typical office building is however hampered due to the lack of comprehensive fine-grained occupancy information. Given that comprehensive fine-grained occupancy information improves the performance of demand-driven measures, this paper presents a review of common existing systems utilized in buildings for occupancy detection. Furthermore, experimental results from the performance evaluation of chair sensors in an office building for providing fine-grained occupancy information for demand-driven control applications are presented.