Evaluating the Potential of Annual Solar Heat Gains from Manually Operated Shading System
Abstract
Predicting occupant behaviour is vital to ensure energy performance in the built environment. Several studies reported discrepancies between the predicted and actual behaviour in buildings, including that towards manually operated solar shading systems. This results in an energy performance gap between predicted and actual energy use in buildings. In this research, the self-reported use of manual shading for an office building in Gothenburg, Sweden was combined with a user survey on the luminous environment. The scopes were: 1) to understand the actual use of shading, and 2) to understand the actual drivers leading to action on shadings. Based on the outcomes, this work builds a simple behavioural model on the use of a manually operated shading system for the specific case study. This model is used to estimate the impact of occupant behaviour on annual solar heat gains through a manual solar shading system.