Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Publication
    Modelling Household Occupancy Profiles using Data Mining Clustering Techniques on Time Use Data
    A strong correlation exists between occupant behaviour and energy demand in residential buildings. The choice of the most suitable occupancy model to be integrated in high temporal resolution energy demand simulations is heavily in uenced by the purpose of the building energy demand model and it is a tradeoff between complexity and accuracy. The current paper introduces a new occupancy model that produces multi-day occupancy profiles and can be adaptable to various occupancy scenarios (e.g., at home all day, mostly absent) and scalable to different population sizes. The methodology exploits data mining clustering techniques with Time Use Survey (TUS) data to produce realistic building occupancy patterns. The overall methodology can be subdivided into two steps: 1. Identification and grouping of households with similar daily occupancy profiles, using data mining clustering techniques; 2. Creation of probabilistic occupancy profiles using 'inverse function method'. The data from the model can be used as input to residential dwelling energy models that use occupancy time-series as inputs.
      344Scopus© Citations 5
  • Publication
    Development of occupancy-integrated archetypes: Use of data mining clustering techniques to embed occupant behaviour profiles in archetypes
    Building stock modelling usually deploys representative building archetypes to obtain reliable results of annual energy heating demand and to minimise the associated computational cost. Available methodologies define archetypes considering only the physical characteristics of buildings. Uniform occupancy schedules, which correspond to national averages, are generally used in archetype energy simulations, despite evidence of occupancy schedules which can vary considerably for each building. This paper presents a new methodology to define occupancy-integrated archetypes. The novel feature of these archetype models is the integration of different occupancy schedules within the archetype itself. This allows building stock energy simulations of national population subgroups characterised by specific occupancy profiles to be undertaken. The importance of including occupant-related data in residential archetypes, which is different than the national average, is demonstrated by applying the methodology to the UK national building stock. The resultant occupancy-integrated archetypes are then modelled to obtain the annual final heating energy demand. It is shown that the relative difference between the heating demand of occupancy-integrated archetypes and uniform occupancy archetypes can be up to 30%.
      520Scopus© Citations 33
  • Publication
    Modelling residential building stock heating load demand - Comparison of occupancy models at large scale
    In the residential housing sector, a strong correlation exists between occupant behaviour and space heating energy use. In particular, the occupancy scenario (e.g., daytime absence, morning presence, etc.) has a significant influence on residential heating load profiles, as well as on cumulative heating energy consumption. In the literature, many occupancy models have been utilised to predict occupancy profiles of individual dwellings as part of larger residential building stocks. The choice of the most suitable occupancy model is a trade-off between complexity, accuracy and computational effort, as well as model integration at large scale. The current paper analyzes the combined influence of different occupancy assumptions and different occupancy models on housing heating loads for a UK building stock sample. The building stock heating loads are estimated using a dynamic thermal model based on an equivalent Resistance-Capacitance electric circuit. It is assumed that the heating periods are coincident with the actively occupied periods. The actively occupied periods are first determined using two existing consolidated occupancy models, and then by using newly developed probabilistic occupancy models. All the models are characterised by a different grade of complexity and accuracy. Comparing the results of all the presented methodologies, the advantages of the new probabilistic approaches are analyzed.
      238
  • Publication
    A high-temporal resolution residential building occupancy model to generate high-temporal resolution heating load profiles of occupancy-integrated archetypes
    (Elsevier, 2020-01-01) ;
    A strong correlation exists between occupant behaviour and space heating energy use. In particular, the occupancy status (e.g., daytime absence) is known to have a significant influence on residential heating load profiles, as well as on cumulative heating energy consumption. In the literature, many occupancy models have been utilised to predict occupancy profiles of individual dwellings as part of the larger residential building stock. However, none of the existing models consider diversity associated with occupancy-integrated archetypes to generate high-temporal resolution heating load profiles. The current paper uses Time Use Survey (TUS) data to develop a high-temporal resolution residential building occupancy model. The key feature of the proposed model, implemented using MATLAB, is the ability to generate stochastic occupancy time-series data for national population subgroups characterised by specific occupancy profiles. It is shown that the results are capable of closely approximating data available from TUS. The developed model can be applied to improve the quality of modelled high-temporal resolution heating load profiles for generic building stock characterised by population subgroups represented by different occupancy-integrated archetypes. A case study is performed on a building stock sample located in London, UK. The developed occupancy model has been implemented in MATLAB and is available for download.
      434Scopus© Citations 24