Energy consumption and indoor environment in offices with deep rooms

The objectives of this project was to get employees to evaluate the indoor climate in an openplan office with a special focus on windows and lighting, to get the employees opinion about working in an openplan office and to estimate the energy eaving possibilities for lighting in the openplan offices.

Questionaires were distributed to workers in four office buildings, a total of 410 answered questionaires were recieved. As expected, the general lighting and the task light were more frequently used in the winter season than during the summer season, still the frequency during summer season was substantial. Using a desk lamp for task lighting is very common in Denmak and the results show that independent on the season, the general lighting was more frequently used than the task light.

A total of 80 % of the employee's report that they are seated less than 4 meters from a window and 70 % are satisfied with the daylight conditions at their working area. Therefore, the frequent use of the general lighting could be reduced by daylight utilization and accordingly the estimated energy savings would amount to 50 %. The same savings would be accomplished with renovation of the existing lighting systems.