A distributed MPC applied to multisource temperature regulation in buildings

Abstract

To reduce their energy costs, many buildings are equipped with multiple heating sources with different dynamics, gains and energy prices, an example is the use of a hot water based central heating and local electric convectors as a complementary heating source. The control problem objective is to minimize the heating energy bills while maintaining a certain indoor thermal comfort. In order to attain this goal, a model predictive approach was used to optimally control the available heating systems regarding their energy prices and the heat demand. This paper presents a distributed model predictive control (dMPC) algorithm based a modified version of Benders’ decomposition for temperature regulation in buildings in order to consider the thermal coupling between the adjacent zones. Simulation studies are presented in order to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.