Description of occupant behaviour in building energy simulation: state-of-art and concepts for improvements

Energy and indoor environmental performance of buildings are highly influenced by outdoor/indoor climate, by building characteristics, and by occupants’ behaviour. Building simulation tools cannot precisely replicate the actual performance of buildings because the simulations are based on a number of basic assumptions that affect the results. Therefore, the calculated energy performance may differ significantly from the real energy consumption. One of the key reasons is the current inability to properly model occupant behaviour and to quantify the associated uncertainties in building performance predictions. By consequence, a better description of parameters related to occupant behaviour is highly required. In this paper, the state of art in occupant behaviour modelling within energy simulation tools is analysed and some concepts related to possible improvements of simulation tools are proposed towards more accurate energy consumption predictions.