Comfort Monitoring: A Prototype and Its Impact

Ensuring occupant comfort levels and improving energy efficiency are a priority item on any building manager's agenda. This is particularly important in a University wide context as comfort levels may have implications on student attainment, employee productivity and occupational health in general. University campuses have a large energy footprint with the HVAC systems being a dominant contributor to this footprint. Facilities managers typically set temperatures of indoor environments at a predefined threshold. In this work, we examine the optimality of such a predefined threshold through a measurement driven pilot study in a building on a University campus. To accomplish this objective, we leverage technology driven interventions by deploying a hardware prototype for thermal comfort monitoring augmented with a bespoke Android application called 'Cozy' for user engagement to understand occupant comfort levels. Findings from this study highlight the need for regular reassessments and adaptation of the target operating point. This also has the potential to reduce energy consumption, the associated carbon footprint and a reduction in the energy bill.