Personal heating; energy use and effectiveness

Increasing personal comfort by heating office building occupants locally means that the lower setpoint for space heating. Less energy will be used when the total energy demand from all individual comfort systems together is lower than the energy saved by lowering the setpoint. The energy saving potential is dependent on the specific characteristics of the individual heating. The important performance characteristics are the energy used per unit of mitigated discomfort and the maximum discomfort that can be compensated for. A pilot study was conducted to investigate these performance indicators. Three methods for locally heating the hands were compared on effectiveness and energy use. The methods were a heated desk mat and two types of IR radiation lamps, all heating the hands. All were found to be effective, however, there was a clear difference in speed for compensating discomfort.