Modelling Electricity Consumption in Office Buildings: An Agent Based Approach

TL;DR

This paper presents an agent-based model that integrates organizational policies, technologies, appliances, and human behavior to simulate and improve electricity consumption in office buildings.

Contribution

It introduces a novel integrated agent-based model for office electricity consumption, combining multiple key elements for the first time.

Findings

Different management strategies' effectiveness tested

Model helps solve practical electricity consumption issues

Provides insights into policy and technology impacts

Abstract

In this paper, we develop an agent-based model which integrates four important elements, i.e. organisational energy management policies/regulations, energy management technologies, electric appliances and equipment, and human behaviour, to simulate the electricity consumption in office buildings. Based on a case study, we use this model to test the effectiveness of different electricity management strategies, and solve practical office electricity consumption problems. This paper theoretically contributes to an integration of the four elements involved in the complex organisational issue of office electricity consumption, and practically contributes to an application of an agent-based approach for office building electricity consumption study.