Toronto, Oct 15 (PTI) In what could bring an end to theendless thermostat wars at office, scientists have developed asystem that can automatically optimise the indoor conditionsincluding air quality, temperature and lighting according toeach worker's needs.
No matter the season, thermostat wars rage in officesworldwide. Employees bicker over the temperature, complainingthat it is either too hot or too cold.
"Improving the quality of the office-building environmentimpacts the comfort of employees, which in turn influencestheir productivity," said Hashem Akbari, professor atConcordia University in Canada.
The researchers simulated their method in an open-airoffice building with five zones and four occupants per zone.
They tested different occupancy scenarios and outdoorweather conditions and took into consideration the employees'thermal tolerance.
Using data analysis techniques, they modelled thepreferences of each office worker. As a result, they couldsimulate worker-preferred indoor temperatures, ventilationrates, natural illumination and artificial lighting based onsensors placed throughout the office.
"We considered several parameters, including energyexchange processes across the building, sets of indoor andoutdoor environmental parameters, energy prices, indoor airquality, occupants' activities and personalised thermal andvisual preferences," said Farhad Mofidi, a graduate fromConcordia University.
"The proposed method is able to act as the brain behindthe decision-making system of a cloud-based energy managementplatform," Mofidi said.
The system not only reduced energy costs, but alsoincreased the overall productivity, researchers said. PTI MHNMHN.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.