Occupancy impact on the indoor air quality of the monitored open-offices

Abstract

Humans spend 90 % of their time indoors therefore proper air quality in buildings is crucial for human health and productivity. The problem with poor air quality is usually found in buildings with no mechanical ventilation. Contrary, modern office buildings, which are usually equipped with mechanical ventilation, are often over-ventilated. The reason is usually related to lower-than-designed buildings’ occupancies. In the context of a pandemic, the occupancy of the buildings has significantly decreased, meanwhile the ventilation systems often operate at the design air flow rates thus causing a waste of energy. The paper presents long-term occupancy and CO2 concentration monitoring results for 4 office buildings. All of the buildings showed very low occupancies and over-ventilation of the rooms. Seeking to decarbonize the buildings sector much is done to strengthen the requirements for energy efficiency of buildings, but the results of the study prove once more that the potential of better building energy using systems management is still unexploited.