Resiliency and Performance Evaluation Indicators of Personalized Environmental Control Systems (PECS)

A Personalized Environmental Control System (PECS) conditions the local environment around occupants. Depending on its functions (e.g., heating, cooling, ventilation), it allows individual control over indoor environmental quality (IEQ) parameters based on each occupant’s own preference. This characteristic of PECS is expected to improve comfort and satisfaction, which could also lead to higher productivity. PECS also has the potential to reduce energy use, when they are effectively coupled with the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems of the building. A personalized ventilation function that provides fresh and/or clean air can reduce occupant exposure to indoor pollutants. PECS could be a resilient solution both in terms of thermal comfort and indoor air quality during extreme events such as heat waves, power outages, outdoor air pollution, and pandemics. A new international project “IEA EBC Annex 87 – Energy and Indoor Environmental Quality Performance of Personalised Environmental Control Systems” aims to develop a universal performance evaluation framework of PECS. As a first step towards this goal, an extensive literature review of performance indicators for PECS has been conducted in the present study. Commonly used indicators and possible indicators for resilience evaluation have been presented and discussed.