Sensor Impact Evaluation at Different Sensor Locations in a Multi-zone Office Building

Li, Yanfei; Yoon, Yeobeom; Im, Piljae; Bae, Yeonjin

doi:10.2172/1878684

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DOE OSTI · 1878684

Sensor Impact Evaluation at Different Sensor Locations in a Multi-zone Office Building

Li, Yanfei·Yoon, Yeobeom·Im, Piljae·Bae, Yeonjin

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Abstract

FY 2022 Q1 deliverables include the development of an emulator that can evaluate the sensor impacts at different sensor locations (i.e., thermostat locations) in a multizone office building. This report presents the detailed procedure of developing the emulator and using the emulator for preliminary sensor impact analysis. In designing new multizone buildings or retrofitting existing buildings, the room thermostat locations or subzoning design has been often determined by best practices without considering the effects of this design in terms of energy or thermal comfort. In subzoning design, the total number of thermostats is usually smaller than the total number of rooms. As a result, one thermostat in one room often controls the indoor temperature of several other adjacent rooms. For example, five zones might share one thermostat located in one of the zones. Because the demands for thermal load in different zones could be different for the multizone buildings, this subzoning design can compromise control performance and waste building energy consumption. Furthermore, for multizone buildings, subzoning could introduce thermal discomfort for zones. This issue has not be thoroughly investigated in simulation/field studies, and the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory explored the impacts of subzoning design through modeling and experimental study.

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Li, Yanfei, Yoon, Yeobeom, Im, Piljae, Bae, Yeonjin. 2022-01-01. Sensor Impact Evaluation at Different Sensor Locations in a Multi-zone Office Building. https://doi.org/10.2172/1878684

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