Speaker

Tom Lawrence, Ph.D., P.E.
ASHRAE DL
University of Georgia

Session #3 – Thermal Comfort as Related to Energy Consumption: What is the Balance?

Maintaining thermal comfort within an occupied building requires energy, thus optimized solution methods for balancing energy use with indoor environmental quality (adequate thermal comfort, lighting, etc.) are needed. Current building temperature control systems do not adequately take in account the adaptive capability of the occupants, but this concept can be used advantageously during implementation of demand response. Demand response programs commonly include temporary adjustments to space temperature set points and thus can affect the occupants’ thermal comfort perceptions. How to balance out the overall energy consumption and peak demand for cooling or heating within buildings with the need for maintaining adequate thermal comfort in the built environment is an issue important to system designers, building operators and society as a whole. This session provides an overview of the historical development of thermal comfort perception, the two primary approaches used to predict and evaluate thermal comfort, and how these are incorporated in ASHRAE Standard 55. Also covered is a discussion of how thermal comfort considerations can be factored into demand response measures, addressing the conflicting balance between energy consumption and thermal comfort, and a vision on how to possibly achieve an overall optimized balance.