Conference Paper

Proceedings of Building Simulation 2021: 17th Conference of IBPSA

     

Personas to understand occupant behavior and energy usage

Vinu Subashini Rajus 1, William O'Brien 2, Gabriel Wainer 1
1 Department of Systems and Computer Engineering, Carleton University, Canada
2 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carleton University, Canada

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26868/25222708.2021.31077
Abstract: Advanced occupant modelling facilitates understanding occupant behaviour by providing dynamic behaviour hypotheses. Most advanced models do not consider occupants' complex nature like adaptive knowledge, attitudes, available control, interactive behaviour, and available technology. This paper proposes a personabased approach to capture various occupant characteristics for building design, simulation, and automation. We demonstrate a method to integrate the personas in building performance simulations for thermal preference in an academic office context. The case study illustrates the ease and flexibility in applying personas for different use case scenarios for decision-making. The energy usage is 10% higher or 12% lower than the standard assumptions based on the personas revealing occupants' do matter in a design.
Keywords: Occupant Behavior, Building Performance, Personas, Energy Modelling, Adaptive Behavior
Pages: 3720 - 3727
Paper:

bs2021_31077