A case study assessing space usage in one building of a US mid-Atlantic university, using semester schedules for reservable rooms and occupancy sensors for drop-in rooms, and identifying energy savings achievable by aligning the climate control schedule to better match usage.
At this university, the building is climate-controlled to comfort settings Monday-Friday 6a-11p, or 85 hours a week. SRT Labs analyzed the usage of the space and found:
- Classrooms, labs, and seminar rooms are unoccupied 63% of the time.
- Drop-in student study rooms are unoccupied 68% of the time.
- Faculty offices are unoccupied 90% of the time.
- When we assume administrative offices have an expected use of M-F 9a-5p, these rooms are unoccupied 47% of the time.
- Restrooms are unoccupied 59% of the time.
There is a significant opportunity to adjust Building Automation System (BAS) settings to reduce energy usage in maintaining comfort settings during unoccupied hours.
SRT’s software integration allows for micro-level of climate control over the BAS settings that were not previously possible, thereby allowing for more granular energy-saving policies and processes.