Full Library

Adaptive comfort standards (ACS) have been gaining acceptance worldwide including in international comfort standards. The current work does not try to provide further evidence that ACS works but instead tries to put forth the most suitable ACS for the tropical climatic regions of India. We compare the comfort temperatures predicted by some standard ACS with the comfort temperatures found from field studies done in tropical climatic regions of India. We find that an ACS developed for the hot and humid regions of South East Asia gives predicted comfort temperatures closest to those found in the field studies. This is as per expectations from adaptive comfort theory since tropical regions of India not only share similar climate but also similar culture with South East Asia. Implementation of the appropriate ACS for Indian conditions can lead to significant savings in energy while maintaining occupant comfort standards.