Center for the Built Environment

This final report presents the results of research completed since June 1991 on PG&E's Advanced Office Systems Testbed (AOST) Project. The initial advanced office system selected for evaluation in the AOST office was the Personal Environmental Module (PEM), manufactured by Johnson Controls. The PEM represents one example of an emerging technology known as task conditioning, or localized thermal distribution (LTD). Workstation-based LTD systems that allow individuals a degree of control over their local environment have the potential to improve the energy efficiency of the building's air distribution system by enabling only the local workstation environments to be tightly controlled while relaxing the energy and comfort requirements in the less critical surrounding spaces.

Work was performed by UC Berkeley in the following task areas: (1) detailed field measurements of thermal comfort of the PG&E employees participating in the study, both before and after moving into the AOST office; (2) installation of a permanent data acquisition and information display system capable of recording and displaying the status of a selected number of performance parameters from the AOST office, including occupant use patterns from each of the eight workstations, supply and return conditions from the air distribution system serving the office, and average room air conditions; (3) analysis of the collected data; and (4) evaluation of the applied measurement methods.