Impact of occupancy patterns on energy performance of kindergarten buildings–A case study of Serbia

The main objective of this research is to develop the representative of realistic occupancy patterns for kindergartens in Serbia that would be used as input for dynamic building energy simulation tools. The current study is unique in a sense that developed patterns, extracted from the actual occupancy data for existing kindergartens, include not only daily but also annual variations in occupancy presence. Variable, fixed (average and maximum) and actual occupancy patterns were generated and then introduced into a building energy models to quantify and compare their impact on the energy behavior of the case study existing kindergarten. The building energy consumption obtained for the actual patterns was considered as the reference case. Simulation results revealed that the people occupancy can have a major impact on the energy performance of educational buildings. There are significant differences between variable and fixed occupancy patterns. The average seasonal deviations for heating and cooling consumption compared to the reference case are: 4.83% (variable), 6.92% (fixed average), 34.35% (fixed maximum) and 4.18% (variable), 12.18% (fixed average), 36.89% (fixed maximum), respectively. Fan electricity use discrepancies for heating and cooling season amounts: 12.37% (variable), 19.39% (fixed average), 94.54% (fixed maximum) and 8.75% (variable), 28.95% (fixed average), 101.83% (fixed maximum), respectively. These findings confirmed the reliability of the proposed variable patterns and proved that conventional patterns, given in standards or rulebooks, which are fixed throughout the year, can significantly reduce the accuracy of energy performance prediction of a buildings with dynamic variations in people occupancy, such as educational buildings.