Dive Brief:
- Applying occupancy-based controls in meeting rooms could cut operational energy use and carbon emissions by an average of 22%, with a payback period of two or less years, according to research released Tuesday by Schneider Electric.
- As part of the study, Schneider Electric equipped meeting rooms with ceiling- and wall-mounted sensors connected to a building management system that adjusted temperature set points based on occupancy readings to determine energy savings, air quality impacts and payback, according to the company’s white paper.
- “Small things like this can make a big difference for any owner,” Brook Potter, director of sustainability and product lead of digital energy at Schneider Electric, said in an interview.
Dive Insight:
The results come from the study of a nine-story, 200,000-square-foot office building in Central London, conducted one year after it began operations. The system was set to make “a very small difference, between 18 degrees Celsius and 22 degrees Celsius,” in temperature, or about 64 degrees F and 72 degrees F, between high and low occupancy days or times within the room. But that small change had “a big impact in terms of what we were able to prove and metric out,” Potter said.
By adjusting temperature set points based on room occupancy, operators can ensure rooms stay in an energy-efficient state most of the time during business hours, helping to save energy and extend the life of equipment, the paper says.
The research team assessed the return on investment and potential payback period for advanced sensors configured to roll back temperature set points in four meeting rooms. Despite the higher capital costs of the advanced sensors compared with a baseline scenario of basic room thermostats with limited data capabilities, the sensors resulted in a payback period estimate of two years, which Potter called conservative.
“We actually did not factor in the things beyond the room,” Potter said, which could include the fan coil that is conditioning the heat, the variable air volume boxes and the air handling units — “things that are energy intensive and would be also positively impacted from an energy perspective because of these measures being enacted,” he said.
In addition to the energy and emissions savings they can offer, occupant-centric building management can also align with indoor environment and wellness objectives, according to the white paper. “With setbacks applied, the meeting rooms responded to occupant demand, and indoor air quality attributes such as CO2, [relative humidity], and [volatile organic compounds] remained in healthy ranges to support a comfortable occupant experience, the paper says.
The study used “existing technology that you assemble together and make work together,” Jean-Marc Zola, president of building segments at Schneider Electric, said in an interview. “For me, what’s really impressive is the benefits and the payback.” Zola added that making such a change is “not complicated. It’s a question of making sure that you have alignment up front between the tenant, the end user, the contractor, the consultant and the supplier.”
Such a process is “Easy to say, [but] not so easy to make actually in real life,” Zola notes, “but when it’s about [this] technology, it’s not rocket science and it’s not costly.”
