Extract

The energy performance of a building is dependent on various decisions and actions taken by
the key stakeholders like building designers, operators, managers, consultants, engineers, occupants,
vendors, researchers and policymakers; throughout the building’s lifecycle. Amongst all the
stakeholders’ occupants of the building are the one who experiences and interacts with the building
systems on a regular basis throughout the buildings’ operational phase. The true nature of this dynamic
and diverse interaction is difficult to understand, estimate or document for a building designer,
therefore, a standard representation is considered in the preconstruction-simulation process. In the
published literature, it is a widely established fact that this leads to a performance gap between the
predicted and actual energy consumption of buildings. Built on this fact this paper explores the human
dimension of building energy performance and presents a thorough literature review to understand
occupant and building system interaction. It also highlights the research need and obstacles to fully
integrate the occupant behaviour into the building design and operation process to close the energy
performance gap while enhancing the occupant comfort and satisfaction. This review concludes with
recommendations for all stakeholders for addressing this knowledge and practice void in the process of
building performance evaluation, also reforms needed in Indian green building industry.

Keywords: Green building energy performance; Occupant behaviour

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