TY - GEN
T1 - Proposal for home energy management system to survey individual thermal comfort range for HVAC control with little contribution from users
AU - Fukuta, Mio
AU - Matsui, Kanae
AU - Ito, Minako
AU - Nishi, Hiroaki
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 IEEE.
PY - 2015/9/28
Y1 - 2015/9/28
N2 - Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) control is used to effectively reduce energy consumption in a home energy management system (HEMS). For the HVAC control, it is necessary to evaluate the indoor comfort level because the HVAC operation is significantly related to indoor environmental conditions. Although there are some indices for indoor comfort, individuals have different comfort ranges. A questionnaire is one way to gather data on individual comfort ranges. However, it requires contributions from users. Therefore, we proposed a new survey method that varied the intervals of the questions addressed to users to reduce the number of responses needed. Additionally, a comfort estimation method was proposed that did not require a questionnaire. This method analyzes the user's operation of the HVAC system, such as touching its on/off switch. An HEMS with the capability of utilizing these two methods was installed in a laboratory and 16 houses in Miyagi prefecture, Japan. An experiment using this HEMS was conducted, and it was able to reduce the number of feedbacks needed to maintain each person's comfort by an average of 32.2%. The HEMS provided the same accuracy as hourly questionnaires. Namely, it confirmed that the estimation based on the air conditioner operations was almost the same as that based on an hourly questionnaire.
AB - Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) control is used to effectively reduce energy consumption in a home energy management system (HEMS). For the HVAC control, it is necessary to evaluate the indoor comfort level because the HVAC operation is significantly related to indoor environmental conditions. Although there are some indices for indoor comfort, individuals have different comfort ranges. A questionnaire is one way to gather data on individual comfort ranges. However, it requires contributions from users. Therefore, we proposed a new survey method that varied the intervals of the questions addressed to users to reduce the number of responses needed. Additionally, a comfort estimation method was proposed that did not require a questionnaire. This method analyzes the user's operation of the HVAC system, such as touching its on/off switch. An HEMS with the capability of utilizing these two methods was installed in a laboratory and 16 houses in Miyagi prefecture, Japan. An experiment using this HEMS was conducted, and it was able to reduce the number of feedbacks needed to maintain each person's comfort by an average of 32.2%. The HEMS provided the same accuracy as hourly questionnaires. Namely, it confirmed that the estimation based on the air conditioner operations was almost the same as that based on an hourly questionnaire.
KW - HVAC control
KW - Home energy management system
KW - Indoor comfort estimation
KW - Questionnaire use
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84949484461&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84949484461&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/INDIN.2015.7281813
DO - 10.1109/INDIN.2015.7281813
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84949484461
T3 - Proceeding - 2015 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Informatics, INDIN 2015
SP - 658
EP - 663
BT - Proceeding - 2015 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Informatics, INDIN 2015
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 13th International Conference on Industrial Informatics, INDIN 2015
Y2 - 22 July 2015 through 24 July 2015
ER -
