Assessing the Effect of Changes in the Official Time of the Country (DST) on the Consumption of Heating and Cooling Energy of an Office Building in Cold, Temperate and Warm Climates

Excessive consumption of energy, particularly fossil fuels has led to the identification of various factors affecting energy consumption in buildings and solutions to reduce consumption. One of the influential indicators of energy consumption in buildings is the time of presence of people, especially in offices. In this research, the effects of a characteristic called DST (change of the official time of the country) and the time of presence of people on the amount of cooling and heating energy consumption were considered. The impact of this indicator was measured in different climates. The selected building was a bank in which the amount of cooling and heating energy consumption was considered in two different modes for the time of presence of people (applying and not applying DST) and keeping other different specifications and details of the building constant in Design Builder software. The results showed that the application of DST in different climates of the country increases the consumption of heating and cooling energy. Non-application of DST causes significant energy savings, especially heating in cities with hot climates such as Ahvaz and Bandar Abbas. In addition, the results of this study indicated that the period of the presence of people, especially in office spaces, was effective in the consumption of heating and cooling energy of the building. Considering the zoning of the climate that exists in Iran, the results of the study indicated that abolishing the change of time would be effective in reducing the consumption of heating and cooling energy.