Evaluating the Potential of Annual Solar Heat Gains from Manually Operated Shading System

Occupant behavior towards manual solar shading systems affects the energy performance of buildings. Behavior depends on several aspects which interact in a nontrivial way. This paper presents a simple prediction model of behavior based on self-reported use of manual shading and a user survey. The specific model is applicable to the case study building, which is an office building in Gothenburg, Sweden, but the approach can be extended to other buildings. The model was tested against a hypothetical automated solar shading system for the same building. The results show that cooling loads increased by at least 25 % with the manual model in respect to the automatic system due to fewer blind movements. The results show that not accounting for occupant behaviour leads to a significative performance gap between predicted and actual building energy use.