Building load control and optimization

Researchers and practitioners have proposed a variety of solutions to reduce electricity consumption and curtail peak demand. This research focuses on load control by improving the operations in existing building HVAC (Heating, Ventilating and Air-Conditioning) systems and by aggregating individual loads based on optimization studies. Emphasis is placed on electricity rates and climate data in California, where electricity costs have been of particular concern. The optimization problem in this research is multi-objective in the sense that we aim to reduce building load while maintaining an acceptable level of comfort. The first part of this research focuses on optimizing controls in a single building. A simple three-zone VAV system model is built in EnergyPlus (E+). The cost function structures and the potential difficulties associated with simulation-based optimization are discussed. Discontinuity and nonlinearity are of major concern. Two optimization algorithms are tested and applied to a variety of problems: Direct Search (DS) and Genetic Algorithms (GA). An E+ simulation based GA optimization environment is developed in Matlab. DS is found to be efficient with small problems in this research, while GA works in almost any situation with the price of intensive computation. A few operations guidelines are proposed. The second part of this research presents three ways of optimizing load control in an aggregation pool: Enumeration, multi-GA and model-based nonlinear optimization. Enumeration relies on expert rules to find a small set of feasible solutions through automated E+ simulations and search exhaustively for the optimal solution. Multi-GA solves the aggregation problem in the Matlab GA environment with

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Xing, Hai-Yun Helen, 1976-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Leslie K. Norford.

• Architecture.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/17663

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/17663