Understanding the Effects of Capturing Climate and Occupancy Trends During Concept-Stage Sustainable Building Design

Abstract

This paper presents a model prediction to capture specifically how energy usage in sustainable buildings on college campuses is affected by different variables of student life. The California State University, Fullerton (CSUF) Student Housing Phase III, which received a Platinum Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for the Building Design and Construction category, with its performance in a LEED California Nonresidential Title 24 (NRT24) and ASHRAE 90.1 climate zones, is used as a case study to illustrate the method. Through LEED-approved software, the standard compliant energy models are compared with the occupancy-scheduled models along with the actual energy consumption in different climate zones. The results provide insight into how variables within student dormitory life affect the total building energy usage. The total amount of energy consumed per area is one new factor providing understanding into occupancy trends. This new data set reveals more understanding regarding how and where the energy is consumed to maintain a comfortable learning environment. The LEED certification program is one benchmark used to determine sustainable building design. Designers must adhere to set standards before being awarded a U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) certification such as LEED. The results from this paper will provide input over which variables within student dormitory life affect the energy usage of the building. With the model results, some solutions are presented to update the LEED project certification as well as to reduce student energy usage.