Personalized environmental control systems (PECS): Overview of applications, technology classification and KPIs

Personal Environmental Control Systems (PECS) enable to individually control the environment in the immediate surroundings of an occupant regarding the thermal, air quality, acoustic, and/or luminous domain without directly influencing the entire space and other occupants’ environment. Although many studies on the influence on the respective comfort and acceptance in relation to the different domains already exist and estimates of energy savings have already been made, PECS have not yet established themselves on the market across the board. In this session we will propose how to classify PECS for the built environment and which KPIs can be used to evaluate different types of them. This is a first step towards a standardised qualitative and quantitative assessment of the benefits that PECS can provide.