Center for the Built Environment

This poster, presented at the 2026 CEC EPRI Electrification Summit, details an ongoing project (Grant Award #: EPC-23-033) aimed at mainstreaming Personal Comfort Devices (PCDs) to provide targeted occupant comfort and reduce HVAC energy and emissions in large commercial buildings. The research focuses on developing a "Personal Control Ecosystem" centered on a Personal Control Hub (PC Hub), an open-source hub built on an ESP32 microcontroller with integrated sensors for occupancy, temperature, humidity, PM2.5, CO2, and VOCs. Novel PCDs developed include a nanofabric handwarmer using nanotube material and a heated/cooled desktop pad for wrist comfort. Integration strategies with Building Management Systems (BMS) utilize networking (BACnet) and semantic layers (Brick or ASHRAE 223) to facilitate load shifting and widened temperature deadbands. Field study results indicate that using PCDs can maintain equivalent comfort while achieving over 30% savings in heating energy by lowering setpoints. The project includes the creation of a web-based PCD Design Guidebook for HVAC engineers and real estate managers to specify PCDs for diverse use cases, ranging from "Rogue Zones" to demand response signals.