Due to COVID-19, building energy consumption is down. Since the coronavirus has created a destructive path across the United States, the outcome of the pandemic is becoming very noticeable. Facility managers in the institutional and industrial centers of the nation continue to assess the fallout from their organizations’ decisions to relocate employees or shut down and or curtail the use of buildings. In that vein, the effect on electricity use in offices is becoming apparent.

In the four weeks till April 4, office building power consumption throughout the nation declined 22 percent, per statistics from real estate software firm Hatch Data. The firm, which examines building data on over 400 million square feet of occupied U.S. space, gathered data from building equipment and utility meters as the nation grappled with the coronavirus outbreak, based on Bisnow.… Read the rest

Decoupling Human Comfort From High Energy Consumption

Energy efficiency (i.e., the ratio of the output of performance to input of energy) in office buildings can reduce CO2 emissions and energy costs, but there are barriers to widespread adoption of energy-efficient solutions in offices since they’re often perceived as a possible threat to perceived comfort, well-being, and functionality of office users.

This is a summary of available data and other published articles which were reviewed and published in Frontiers of Psychology. The systematic review was conducted by Laurentiu Paul Maricutoiu, Malgorzata W. Kozusznik, Delia Mihaela Vîrgǎ, José M. Peiró, Aida Soriano, and Carolina Mateo-Cecilia.… Read the rest