Model predictive control in phase-change-material-wallboard-enhanced building energy management considering electricity price dynamics

Shiyu Yang, H. Oliver Gao and Fengqi You

Applied Energy, 2022, vol. 326, issue C, No S0306261922012806

Abstract: Incorporating phase-change material (PCM) wallboards into building envelopes can help reduce electricity costs associated with heating and enhance demand flexibility in dynamic building energy management in response to electricity price volatility. The conventional control strategies adopted in current building energy management systems are ‘reactive’ in nature, hence, they are not ready to exploit the full potential of PCM wallboards for price-based, demand-responsive building control applications. This study proposes a model predictive control (MPC) framework for price-based, demand-responsive control of PCM-wallboard-enhanced space heating systems to minimize electricity costs and maximize demand flexibility by fully exploiting PCM wallboards. A high-fidelity, linear PCM wallboard and building thermodynamics model are developed for computationally efficient building control. The model is then incorporated into an MPC framework considering the PCM wallboard dynamics and dynamic electricity prices. A simulation case study is conducted for a single-family house employing the proposed MPC approach to control its space heating system. Compared to conventional control, the MPC approach reduces space heating electricity costs by more than 60 %. The MPC approach also shifts more than 80 % of peak heating loads to off-peak periods, much higher than conventional control achieves (less than40 %). The simulation results also show good synergistic benefits of MPC in fully exploiting PCM wallboards in optimizing building space heating operation: achieving additional 31.1 % electricity cost savings and 38.7 % peak load shifting than without leveraging PCM wallboards. In contrast, conventional control cannot achieve such synergistic benefits. The proposed MPC framework is also proven computationally viable for real-time building control.

Keywords: Model Predictive Control; Demand Flexibility; Phase-Change Material Wallboard; Dynamic Electricity Prices (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261922012806
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:326:y:2022:i:c:s0306261922012806

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2022.120023

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().