College of Civil Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China.
Key Laboratory of Building Safety and Energy Efficiency, Hunan University, Ministry of Education, Changsha 410082, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2017 Nov 17;14(11):1408. doi: 10.3390/ijerph14111408.
It is well known that personal cooling improves thermal comfort and save energy. This study aims to: (1) compare different personal cooling systems and (2) understand what influences users' willingness to adopt them. A series of experiments on several types of personal cooling systems, which included physical measurements, questionnaires and feedback, was conducted in a real office environment. The obtained results showed that personal cooling improved comfort of participants in warm environments. Then an improved index was proposed and used to compare different types of personal cooling systems in terms of comfort and energy efficiency simultaneously. According to the improved index, desk fans were highly energy-efficient, while the hybrid personal cooling (the combination of radiant cooling desk and desk fan) consumed more energy but showed advantages of extending the comfortable temperature range. Moreover, if personal cooling was free, most participants were willing to adopt it and the effectiveness was the main factor influencing their willingness, whereas if participants had to pay, they probably refused to adopt it due to the cost and the availability of conventional air conditioners. Thus, providing effective and free personal cooling systems should be regarded as a better way for its wider application.
众所周知，个人降温可以提高热舒适度并节约能源。本研究旨在：（1）比较不同的个人降温系统，（2）了解影响用户采用个人降温系统意愿的因素。在真实的办公环境中进行了一系列针对几种个人降温系统的实验，包括物理测量、问卷调查和反馈。实验结果表明，个人降温可以提高热环境下参与者的舒适度。然后提出了一个改进的指标，并用于同时比较不同类型的个人降温系统在舒适度和能源效率方面的表现。根据改进的指标，桌面风扇具有很高的能源效率，而混合个人降温（辐射冷却桌面和桌面风扇的组合）消耗更多的能源，但具有扩展舒适温度范围的优势。此外，如果个人降温是免费的，大多数参与者愿意采用它，并且有效性是影响他们意愿的主要因素，而如果参与者需要付费，他们可能会因为成本和传统空调的可用性而拒绝采用。因此，提供有效且免费的个人降温系统应该被视为其更广泛应用的更好方式。
