Interactions between the Built Environment and the Energy-Related Behaviors of Occupants in Government Office Buildings

Abstract

Human behaviors that greatly influence building energy consumption are stimulated by the indoor environment. However, the relative importance of different environmental factors remains unclear. Previous literature mostly focused on single behavior. Holistic study of multiple energy-related behaviors is scarce. To fill the gap, this study investigated 22 government office buildings in Sichuan using questionnaires and field measurement. Environmental factors were ranked based on the two dimensions of “importance level’level” and “satisfaction level”. The key energy-related behaviors were identified by the comparative study between low- and high-energy-consuming buildings. Lastly, interactions between the building energy consumption, indoor environment quality, occupants’ satisfaction, and human behaviors were analyzed. Questionnaires reveal that most occupants consider indoor air quality as the prior “pain point” while feeling satisfied enough with the thermal environment. Although people attach less importance to the acoustic environment, they manifest evident discontent, suggesting that noise control is an urgent imperative. In contrast, occupants are relatively unconcerned with illuminance, which implies the feasibility of saving energy by reasonably reducing lighting requirements of some non-critical areas. The comparative study indicates that increased energy consumption was attributable to extra personal appliances, wasteful air conditioning habits, and the lack of ventilation in summer. The objective environment of high-energy-consuming buildings is slightly better. However, the difference in perceived satisfaction was not obvious. The findings of this study contribute to determining the most noteworthy environmental factor and the key energy-related behaviors and provide reference information for optimizing energy-saving strategies.

Comprehensive Analysis of Influencing Factors on Building Energy Performance and Strategic Insights for Sustainable Development: A Systematic Literature Review

“…As a result, the most prevalent factors, as noted by [22], in an empirical analysis of BEP, were classified as technical factors (i.e., climate and building envelope) and human factors (i.e., interior conditions and occupant behavior). This review covered the most prevalent and popular factors, namely, the building envelope (building floor area, [43,50], window [44,51,52], roof [17,53], wall [13,23,24], and orientation [44,54]), climate conditions [10,42,55], and occupancy [6,20,56].…”

“…Among these factors, occupancy is considered to be the most important factor for improving BEP [56]. As stated by [40], "Buildings do not consume energy, people do".…”

Impact of Socioeconomic Factors on Environmental Quality: A Panel Quintile Regression Method

“…Keeping the environment in consideration, energy conservation is a controversial subject. Energy consumption and environmental quality are studied in the following research studies [44][45][46]. When it comes to carbon emissions, both the usage of energy consumption and environmental quality in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region contributes to the problem [47][48][49].…”

Energy Consumption and Carbon Emissions of Nearly Zero-Energy Buildings in Hot Summer and Cold Winter Zones of China

“…Huang et al [23] used ENVI-met and EnergyPlus to study the hot and humid climate zone in Taipei, and found that microclimate had a significant impact on building energy consumption. Zhu et al [24] ranked the environmental factors of buildings by setting an "importance level" and a "satisfaction level" in order to study their importance and provide a reference for optimizing energy-saving strategies. Li [25] used VOS Viewer scientific mapping software to visualize keywords and authors and examine the intrinsic influence mechanisms of environmental factors that affect building energy consumption.…”