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?
- AThe installation of the occupancy sensors allowed office tenants to expand their workstation density within the leased spaces during normal operating hours.
- BLocal utility companies raised peak-hour electricity rates during the same year, increasing the total utility expenditures for commercial building operators.
- 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.Cevap
- DBuilding maintenance crews upgraded window insulation across all thirty towers with high-efficiency thermal glazing during the middle of the year.
- ECommercial tenants in the buildings reported a measurable increase in overall employee comfort and productivity after the new systems were operational.
Cevap
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.
Adım Adım Çözüm
Anahtar Kavram
Resolving Paradoxes and Apparent Discrepancies