Distributed model predictive control for building energy systems in distribution grids

Abstract

Demand side management is widely acknowledged as an important source of flexibility and then an essential element to balance supply and demand more effectively. A fundamental challenge is to enable buildings to participate in demand side services without violating indoor comfort. In this paper, we present a distributed Model Predictive Control (MPC) approach to demand side management in buildings. The proposed MPC scheme encompasses heating/cooling systems, onsite generation and storage technologies, which are integrated into a unified management framework along with standard objectives (e.g., heating/cooling). The distributed algorithm, based on an active-set method, allows adjustments of multiple setpoints and enables the building to participate in balancing programs while minimising the energy use without violating the indoor comfort. Numerical results with real data from one university building show the promising performance and computational tractability of the proposed approach, which can enable practical implementations on building platforms. CONFIDENTIAL. Limited circulation. For review only.

Powerskin Conference Proceedings

“…This topic has been addressed in a number of studies focussing on single-family houses (Weniger et al 2015, Beer et al 2016, Kramer et al 2017. In order to complement this research, the present study deals with the case of residential multi-family buildings, for which there is still a need for more investigation as a promising study case with a relatively large PV surface.…”

“…To this end, the defined time horizon for specifying the prediction period can have an impact on the energy management potential. To study optimised control strategies in a system with multiple components and the integration of building mass as storage, Kramer et al (2017) implement a distributed model predictive control approach in order to manage the residual load of multiple buildings. This approach differs from the one implemented for single houses, in which the management of energy relates to only one residential unit.…”