| Summary: | In view of the current global scenery, in which several nations are striving against global warming, energy efficiency rises as a cost-effective prospect. As the building sector accounts for over one-fifth of the total delivered energy consumed worldwide, it has great potential for implementing rationalization and energy efficiency measures. Service buildings are expected to have the highest growth in energy consumption when compared to residential buildings and are therefore the focus of this thesis. Energy reduction efforts for service buildings are vast; however, they are concentrated mostly on technological opportunities. Behaviour changes represent a great potential for reducing energy consumption without significant financial costs, but still, they are commonly disregarded. Hence, the present dissertation aims to propose a quantitative methodology to analyze occupants’ behaviours and their impact on energy consumption in service buildings. Results are acquired through the use of dynamic simulation, namely DesignBuilder software. Energy consumption due to behaviour is determined by simulating the occupant interactions with equipment, lighting and HVAC systems. To that end, three occupancy profiles were fixed: standard occupants’ interactions are defined by Decree-Law nº 79/2006; efficient occupants have extreme efficient behaviours leading to energy savings; inefficient ones lead to extreme energy waste. Dynamic simulation results give evidence of the occupancy impact on energy consumption. Efficient behaviours were able to reduce energy consumption by over 34%. However, regardless of the rigorousness of efficient behaviours, waste potential by inefficient occupants was always higher than saving potential. This result highlights the importance of understanding occupant behaviours and its accurate consideration of dynamic simulation tools.
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