ASHRAE Journal - November 2020 - 29

TECHNICAL FEATURE

FIGURE 3 Participant dashboard examples. (a) weekly operating schedule of a building; and (b) tenant-level
which operator decisions inﬂuence
electricity use dashboard to flag energy use anomalies.
energy and comfort performance.
A.
This questionnaire survey anecdotally
revealed that the typical start and stop
schedules of air-handling units largely
depend on occupancy hours as well
as outdoor temperature and peak and
off-peak electricity demands.
All participants reported they maintain a speciﬁc summer and winter
setpoint during these seasons even
though dead band is not maintained in
all of their managed buildings; some
buildings require manual adjustment
B.
of the setpoints, as the system does
not have that feature. In this regard,
one participant said, "When the outdoor air temperature is extreme, I try
to maintain a minimum outdoor air
ventilation rate and thus, I optimize
outdoor air heating and cooling energy
consumption."
This interview reveals there are
differences in summer and winter
setpoint ranges adjusted by different
facility managers, and in most cases
their adjusted setpoints do not align
with ASHRAE Standard 55-2017.5
Figure 3b shows a dashboard that highlights tenant-level
are passionate about meeting additional operational
energy uses. Through this dashboard, one of the particigoals through implementation of occupant-centric
pants visualizes the diversity in tenant-level energy use
building controls in their managed buildings, regardless
and identiﬁes high energy consuming units. The particiof the issue of energy champions. However, they often
pant reported using this information along with weather
need to go through multiple nontechnical (e.g., interdata to control the operation of HVAC equipment.
personal, organizational) challenges while exercising
Regarding the question in Table 1 about occupants and energy-efﬁciency strategies in their facilities. To overoccupant comfort-related information, the participants come these challenges and to execute any comfort and
wished to have access to building occupant count data,
building performance-related long-term strategic plan,
detailed feedback from the occupants, and zone-wise
it is necessary to ensure wholehearted engagement and
occupant presence data. The participants also discussed cooperation of building operators and occupants, along
some comfort and energy saving beneﬁts to having
with government support. Also, researchers need to
access to occupants and occupant comfort-related
demonstrate that facility managers can execute energydetailed information.
efﬁciency strategies in their facilities without any negative impacts they fear (such as a risk of poor execution,
Recommendations and Research Needs
which can impact occupant comfort).
The interview results show that building energy manOn the other hand, building operators should pay
agement personnel and operators are enthusiastic about more attention to adjusting the setpoint temperatures and
receiving advanced occupant sensing technologies and
maintaining a different setpoint range for the summer
N OVEM BER 2020

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ASHRAE Journal - November 2020

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