Walk through any office on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon. Chances are that part of the desks are empty. And that a few meeting rooms are at a comfortable 21 degrees, with the lights on, while nobody is there.
The building does not know you work from home
Most HVAC systems work with fixed times. On from 7 am to 7 pm, on working days. That suited the time when everyone came to the office every day. Now many people work from home part of the week. But the building does not know that.
What occupancy sensors change
An occupancy sensor detects whether someone is in a room. Connect it to the climate control and the lighting, and something simple happens: an empty room goes into energy saving mode. When someone comes in, it becomes comfortable again.
Combine this with the room booking system, and it gets even smarter. The meeting room only warms up just before the meeting starts. And if nobody turns up, it switches off again after fifteen minutes.
It only works if everything is connected
This sounds simple, and it is. Provided the systems can talk to each other. In many buildings the sensors, the climate control and the booking system come from different suppliers and are not connected. Then the savings are left on the table.
Start small
You do not have to convert the whole building at once. Start with the rooms that are empty most often, such as meeting rooms and flexible workspaces. Measure the effect, and then expand.
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