Real-time estimation of thermal comfort indices in an office building with a solar powered HVAC system

Abstract

This paper presents an interactive software tool to monitor in real-time thermal comfort in buildings. Specifically, the tool is used to estimate predicted mean vote (PMV) and predicted percentage dissatisfied (PPD) indices, which are widely accepted in the framework of thermal comfort and recognized by international standards. In this work, the tool was tested in an office building with an HVAC system based on solar energy. To perform this task, a network architecture that enables communication between different protocols is proposed, with a TCP/IP-Modbus gateway and a web server as the main elements, providing in this way external connectivity and data collection from different sensors. The tool communicates remotely with the renewable system and proposes corrective control indications to maintain the indoorair conditions inside the optimal comfort range. Keywordsthermal comfort; distributed systems; interactive tool; renewable energy and sustainability.978-1-4799-9936-1/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE

Educational tool for the learning of thermal comfort control based on PMV‐PPD indices

“…In this sense, from a practical point of view, the connectivity capacity of CB‐GUI with a BMS system is also used in the designed course. Students also configure a BMS connection with an installed Modbus TCP/IP gateway and PMV‐PPD indices are estimated from a real building .…”

“…The main point of this part was to show the students the main components of a BMS system, that is, the communication network, the hardware (in this case the HVAC controllers, the solar system and sensors) and the software (CB‐GUI working as an upper layer in the control system and the HVAC control programs running in the controllers). The results of these experimental tests with the tool can be consulted in .…”