CyI Contributes to the Creation of the First Global Building Occupant Behaviour Database
Prof. Salvatore Carlucci, Head of the Sustainable Built Environment Group of the Energy Division of Energy, Environment and Water Research Center (EEWRC) of The Cyprus Institute (CyI), has contributed to the creation of the first open-access, comprehensive, global database about building occupant behaviour, representing CyI in this endeavour.
This database is the result of the last two years’ efforts with researchers from 15 countries and 39 institutions across 10 climatic zones, covering various building types in both commercial and residential sectors.
The database and website of this project is publicly accessible and available for access, query, and for downloading specific datasets or the whole database interactively (https://ashraeobdatabase.com/). This database can help in the advancement of the knowledge and understanding of realistic occupancy patterns (i.e., presence and people count), occupant behaviours (i.e., interactions with devices, equipment, and technical systems in buildings), human-building interactions with building systems (e.g., light switching, set-point changes on thermostats, fans on/off, etc.) and envelopes (e.g., window opening/closing). With these more realistic inputs of occupants’ schedules and their interactions with buildings and systems, building designers, energy modelers, and consultants can improve the accuracy of building energy simulation and building load forecasting.
The work has been published in the journal Scientific Data by Nature, and was carried out within the context of Annex79, promoted by the International Energy Agency – Energy in Buildings and Communities Programme.
