Dear Colleagues,

While technology progress allows buildings to use more efficient mechanical and electrical devices, and to be constructed with improved insulation, the control of buildings becomes more complex and challenging for occupants, and as a result, comfort conditions are often not achieved. Not surprisingly, unsatisfied occupants are common even in new and retrofitted buildings.

Moreover, the impact of occupants and their actions may strongly affect the energy performance of buildings, e.g., through rebound effects, and hence jeopardise our efforts to increase the efficiency of the building stock.

Finally, the integration of renewable energy sources for heating, cooling, and ventilation calls for advanced control approaches in buildings, e.g., predictive and learning-based, and the real needs of the occupants become even more important, while misuse of the system has to be avoided.

One fundamental research question also addressed within the IEA EBC Annex 79 (occupant-centric building design and operation) is related to the integration of occupants and their actual needs into the control loop of buildings. How can we let occupants easily control the indoor environment, and reach the required comfort? How can occupants’ actual needs be integrated into the control loop, while efficiently controlling and maximising the usage of renewable energy sources in buildings?

The answers to these questions call for a paradigm shift, from “set-point-based” manual control to “perception-based”, human-in-the-loop control of buildings.

The objective of this Special Issue is to bring together new and leading works that address this novel paradigm for indoor climate control and energy management in buildings. We invite papers that address challenges in the human-in-the-loop paradigm. Both simulation and hardware implementation studies are of interest.

Dr. Davide Calì
Prof. Dr. Zoltan Nagy
Prof. Bjarne W. Olesen
Guest Editors

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• Feedback-based indoor climate control
• Human-in-the-loop
• Buildings and HVAC control
• Perception-based control
• Dynamic comfort
• Occupants’ tracing