Paper publication on model predictive control of HVAC-systems in a real system
At the end of 2018, the second experimental hall for energy-efficient construction of the Institute for Energy Efficient Buildings and Indoor Climate (EBC) and the Institute for Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Construction (E3D) was inaugurated. Since then, further efforts have been made to complete the construction of the technical building equipment and the implementation of the automation system. In fact, this process was mainly managed by EBC's own resources. These included the tendering of HVAC and automation components, ordering, mechanical and electrical construction, and implementation of the programmable logic controller for the building management system (BMS).
In order to share the experience gained in the process, researchers Markus Schraven, Marc Baranski and Alexander Kümpel recently published an article on the HVAC system of the test hall (https://doi.org/10.18154/RWTH-2023-03811) and report on the challenges in implementing a model predictive control (MPC) system, but also in the construction process. The article includes a comprehensive description of the HVAC and automation system as well as supplementary material with schemes for heating, ventilation and BMS as well as design data that can be used e.g. in the context of energy system modelling. In addition, a complete building information model (BIM) of the system is available. Furthermore, a basic control based on PID control is presented and compared with a simplified MPC. Despite the simplified system modelling for the MPC, it shows good performance.