Adding psychological factor in the model of electricity consumption in office building

Abstract

Researches indicate that energy behaviour is the key to energy conservation and suggest that comparative feedback on energy usage can generate savings in residential and organizational settings. In implementing comparative feedback in workplace, there are two different ways to disaggregate collective energy consumption and apportion it to building users; individual or group level. This research uses agent-based modelling and simulation to examine the impact of applying different approaches of energy data apportionment to change staff behaviour toward energy consumption reduction. A simulation model of energy consumption in workplace as a base model is a re-implementation and simplification from former research. Several psychological factors and decision-making mechanism are then being added as an extension. The model divides staffs into four energy awareness stereotypes based on motivation level. Sensitivity analysis suggests that motivation is an important factor in changing user's behaviour and the experiment results indicates greater potential for energy saving when energy usage is apportioned to group level. The significant difference of energy consumption level makes user with low and medium motivation should become the target of energy reduction campaign.