Energy-Efficient Offices Fail When Thermal Comfort Is Treated as an Average

Thermal comfort and energy efficiency can be balanced better when the office combines local comfort control with overall background systems instead of forcing everyone into the same average.

That is a central issue in many office projects where energy optimisation and user experience are still treated as competing goals. The result is often an environment that looks rational in technical terms but performs weakly for the people who actually work there.

A new Building and Environment study proposes a cooperative control strategy where a personal comfort model is combined with personalised environmental control and an overall background system. The results point toward both stronger thermal comfort and meaningful energy-saving potential.

That does not mean every office needs exactly the same technical solution. It does mean temperature should be handled as a trade-off between use and operations rather than as a one-sided optimisation of an average setting.

Why does one shared temperature average often become a poor compromise?

When several people share the same office environment, variation in preference becomes obvious. Some need cooler conditions to focus well. Others need warmer conditions to feel comfortable. If control still relies on one common value, almost everyone ends up with a setting that is only tolerable rather than genuinely supportive.

That makes the compromise expensive in two ways. Usability can weaken when comfort is too poor, and energy logic can also become inefficient if the system tries to solve all needs through one background strategy.

For decision-makers, this means temperature should not be treated as a simple facilities parameter. It shapes how the office works as a real work environment.

What does the cooperative control strategy add?

The study is useful because it shows that personal comfort and overall energy control do not need to be handled as opposing forces. By combining an individual comfort model with local control possibilities and a background conditioning system, the office can respond better to variation between users.

The researchers show, among other things, that the personal comfort model performed more accurately than more general models and that the share of thermal sensation votes inside the neutral zone increased substantially. At the same time, simulation results pointed to energy-saving potential as well.

That makes the study valuable because it moves the issue away from a false either-or. The goal does not have to be choosing between comfort and energy. It can be designing a control logic that treats both more intelligently.

Which mistakes do organisations make when they try to balance comfort and energy?

The first mistake is optimising energy without understanding how comfort mismatch affects work. That can make the solution look efficient in operations data while functioning poorly in daily use.

The second mistake is assuming equal control means fair control. In practice, the same temperature often means different workplace quality for different people.

The third mistake is adding local control without linking it to a wider strategy. That can leave the system fragmented, harder to manage, and inconsistent over time.

What does a stronger decision base for office temperature control look like?

A stronger decision base needs to capture both the user perspective and the system perspective. That means understanding where conflicts in thermal experience arise, which groups are most affected, and which parts of the office need greater local adaptability.

It then requires a decision on how local control should work together with the background system. Only when those two levels are considered together can the organisation judge whether the solution truly supports both work environment quality and energy performance.

This is where workplace analysis becomes important. It helps the organisation understand how thermal comfort affects focus, stamina, and the use of different settings instead of treating control logic as isolated building technology.

Which questions should you answer before choosing a control strategy?

Before moving ahead, the team should be able to answer at least the following:

• Where do the biggest conflicts arise between individual comfort and overall energy targets?
• Which parts of the office need local adjustability, and which can work under shared control?
• How does the current thermal environment affect focus, stamina, and the use of different settings?
• Is the proposed solution understandable and manageable over time?
• Is the choice of control strategy based on real user data or on assumptions about a reasonable average?

If those questions are not answered, there is a clear risk that the organisation chooses a technically elegant solution that remains too weak in daily practice.

Source

Source supporting this article: Building and Environment, “Cooperative control strategy for local and overall thermal environment: Optimizing thermal comfort and energy efficiency in offices”, published 2026-07. URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2026.114669.