Feedback messaging, thermal comfort and energy use behaviour in personal comfort system utilisation at office workplaces
Creators: name: Li, Ziqiao
Publisher: name: Loughborough University
Year: 2021
Subjects: subject: 129999 Built Environment and Design not elsewhere classified
subject: FOS: Civil engineering

description: Buildings serve as vital accommodation for human beings, and this is one of the most energyconsuming sectors in today’s world Office buildings in England account for 17% (27620 GWh/year) of total non-domestic energy consumption, while nearly 41.9% of total officebuilding energy was consumed by creating thermal environments (space heating, cooling and humidification) in office buildings (DBEIS, 2016). To reduce energy consumption and improve individual thermal comfort in office buildings, interest developed in personal comfort systems. Common-type personal comfort systems (up to the year 2019 – the time of writing) were demonstrated in the present study. However, excessively relying on personal comfort systems to maintain thermal comfort could potentially diminish the chance to adopt other thermal adaptive opportunities, leading to increased energy consumption. This thesis examines the potential influence of psychological interventions (feedback messaging in the form of energy feedback in combination with social normative information) on the thermal comfort and energy-use behaviours of occupants using personal comfort systems in the UK shared-office setting, with a view to reducing energy demand. A suite of three environmental room-based experiments involving 101 participants were designed and conducted during 2018-2019, including [1] the condition-validation experiment (checked the stability of the thermal environment and the air quality inside the environmental room); [2] the initial experiment (investigated the effect of feedback messaging with intended local climate control); [3] the final experiment (investigated the effect of feedback messaging with actual local climate control). Overall, it was found that feedback messaging can significantly affect both participants’ intended and actual behaviours of using desk fans, resulting in reduced energy consumption without reducing thermal comfort, especially in warm conditions (27°C and 29.5°C). Detailed methodology and results are reported in Chapter 3, 4 and 5 of this thesis. Results and their implications are comprehensively discussed. Feedback messaging in conjunction with personal comfort systems could provide occupants with a new thermal adaptation opportunity. The finding of this study expands the range of parameters that influence thermal-related evaluations in office buildings, which means that psychological intervention (e.g. feedback messaging) could also influence people’s subjective thermal evaluations alongside environmental parameters, clothing insulation and activity level. There could be potential for feedback messaging to be used as a management tool to save energy while retaining the sensation of comfort in offices, though it is essential that any health and well-being implications are fully investigated beforehand. A field-based investigation is recommended to be carried out on a larger scale over a longer period, with a more diverse sample, in the presence of other potentially influencing factors and adaptive opportunities prior to any application of feedback messaging in office buildings.