Applying model-based control strategies to an office building

Model-based control is a well-established technique to solve complex control tasks and is currently employed in industrial applications. Using a model of the controlled process to predict its behavior and thus optimize operation was shown to improve various industrial processes. Building automation has not yet exploited the potential of this technology, although it has the capability to address the upcoming challenges for energy efficient buildings. This paper demonstrates how model-based control can be used in a building automation system in order to improve building energy management. This paper explains the overall development process, i.e. the development of the model to be controlled, the comparison to the conventional control strategies. Furthermore it will be shown how the innovative control strategy is implemented with a case study where a weather predictive control strategy is realized for the ENERGYbase office building, with the aim of reducing the heating demand of the building. Using the predicted outdoor air temperature and solar radiation and a thermal model of the building, the building automation is improved. Thereby, heating demand is reduced significantly. The overall control system configuration is optimized in simulation runs, where system state set-points are recalculated for the purpose of heating demand reduction. This demonstrates the versatility of model-based control, as well as applicability in building automation.