Impact of interactive evolution of heterogeneous occupants' air-conditioning usage behavior on air-conditioning energy consumption in university office buildings

Interactive evolution (IE) of heterogeneous occupants' air-conditioning (AC) usage behavior was rarely considered when forecasting the AC energy consumption, leading to inaccurate predictions. Therefore, a study was conducted to investigate the impact of IE of heterogeneous occupants' AC-usage behavior on AC energy consumption. The Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology was selected as the survey site. Occupants in the university's office buildings were divided into groups with different preferred temperature and energy-saving awareness. Next, an evolution model of the AC-usage behavior and a co-simulation model of AC-usage behavior and AC energy consumption was developed, respectively. The summer AC cooling energy consumption was simulated in different scenarios. The following observations were made: 1) When the proportions of heterogeneous occupants indoors are equal, the setpoint temperature fluctuates between 22 degrees C and 26 degrees C during the evolution of the occupants' AC-usage behavior. In the evolutionary steady state, the indoor setpoint temperature will stabilize at either 24 degrees C or 25 degrees C; 2) Reducing the proportion of occupants with low preferred temperature or low energy-saving awareness can improve the indoor setpoint temperature in the evolutionary steady state or shorten the evolution time, potentially saving up to 14.78% and 16.40% of AC cooling energy consumption, respectively; 3) Improving intergroup interpersonal relationships can only shorten the time required to reach the evolutionary steady state, reducing AC cooling energy consumption by only 0.51%.