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Difficulty: MediumResolving Paradoxes and Apparent Discrepancies

In 2025, a commercial real estate management firm equipped all thirty of its downtown office towers with automated occupancy-sensing climate control and lighting systems designed to reduce energy consumption. Independent audits confirmed that the automated systems operated flawlessly, reducing electricity usage per occupied floor during working hours by 25 percent. Nevertheless, total annual electricity consumption across all thirty towers increased by 8 percent over the following year, even though overall building occupancy rates and local weather patterns remained virtually unchanged.

Which of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the apparent discrepancy described above?

  1. A
    The installation of the occupancy sensors allowed office tenants to expand their workstation density within the leased spaces during normal operating hours.
  2. B
    Local utility companies raised peak-hour electricity rates during the same year, increasing the total utility expenditures for commercial building operators.
  3. The automated system's software default overrode manual overnight shutdown protocols, causing main ventilation chillers to run continuously at baseline levels after business hours rather than shutting off.Answer
  4. D
    Building maintenance crews upgraded window insulation across all thirty towers with high-efficiency thermal glazing during the middle of the year.
  5. E
    Commercial tenants in the buildings reported a measurable increase in overall employee comfort and productivity after the new systems were operational.

Answer

The statement explaining that the automated system's default software overrode overnight shutdown protocols, causing HVAC equipment to run continuously after business hours, resolves the paradox.
The correct answer provides a missing factor that reconciles both seemingly contradictory facts. If the automated control software prevented heating and cooling equipment from shutting down overnight as it previously did manually, the new off-hours electricity consumption could easily outweigh the 25 percent energy savings achieved during business hours, resulting in an overall 8 percent annual increase.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the two conflicting facts in the stimulus.
Fact 1: Electricity usage per occupied floor during working hours decreased by 25%. Fact 2: Total annual electricity consumption increased by 8%, despite constant occupancy rates and weather.
Resolving a paradox requires finding a missing piece of information that allows both premises to be true simultaneously.
2
Evaluate the scope of the two facts.
Fact 1 is limited to working hours and occupied floor efficiency. Fact 2 measures overall annual consumption across all 24 hours of the day.
A discrepancy between a subset rate (working hours) and a total measure (annual consumption) often hinges on what happens outside the subset (non-working hours).
3
Select the option that introduces a mechanism bridging the gap between working hours and non-working hours.
The option introducing continuous overnight operation of major HVAC chillers accounts for substantial new off-hour consumption without contradicting the working-hour efficiency gains.
This explains how total consumption could rise despite decreased working-hour consumption per floor.

Key Concept

Resolving Paradoxes and Apparent Discrepancies
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Topics

Resolving Paradoxes and Apparent Discrepancies

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