Model Predictive Climate Control of a Swiss Office Building: Implementation, Results, and Cost-Benefit Analysis

• Published in: IEEE transactions on control systems technology Vol. 24; no. 1; pp. 1 - 12
• Main Authors: Sturzenegger, David, Gyalistras, Dimitrios, Morari, Manfred, Smith, Roy S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01-01-2016; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Atmospheric modeling; Building automation; Building energy; building modeling; Buildings; Comfort; Computer simulation; Control systems; Cooling; Cost benefit analysis; Financing; Investment; Mathematical model; Mathematical models; model predictive control (MPC); Office buildings; Predictive models; Water heating; building modeling; Building energy; model predictive control (MPC)
• ISSN: 1063-6536; 1558-0865
• DOI: 10.1109/TCST.2015.2415411

This paper reports the final results of the predictive building control project OptiControl-II that encompassed seven months of model predictive control (MPC) of a fully occupied Swiss office building. First, this paper provides a comprehensive literature review of experimental building MPC studies. Second, we describe the chosen control setup and modeling, the main experimental results, as well as simulation-based comparisons of MPC to industry-standard control using the EnergyPlus simulation software. Third, the costs and benefits of building MPC for cases similar to the investigated building are analyzed. In the experiments, MPC controlled the building reliably and achieved a good comfort level. The simulations suggested a significantly improved control performance in terms of energy and comfort compared with the previously installed industry-standard control strategy. However, for similar buildings and with the tools currently available, the required initial investment is likely too high to justify the deployment in everyday building projects on the basis of operating cost savings alone. Nevertheless, development investments in an MPC building automation framework and a tool for modeling building thermal dynamics together with the increasing importance of demand response and rising energy prices may push the technology into the net benefit range.