Economic evaluation on the effect of thermal environmental control in summer on sleep and work efficiency

Reduced sleep quality is a serious problem. Previous studies have reported that the thermal environment affects sleep, and that although thermal environmental control via cooling is necessary, this increases energy consumption. Here, we conduct an economic evaluation of the impact of thermal environment control on both sleep quality and energy consumption through experiments conducted in August 2013 and 2014. Reduced sleep efficiency led to decreased work efficiency. The economic impact of improving sleep quality was much greater than that of energy consumption. This study showed importance of the improvement of the sleep quality.