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Article history: The aim of this paper is to propose a control approach for the management of a productionconsumption
Received 10 April 2015 energy system based on model predictive control (MPC). The solar absorption cooling system is seen as
Received in revised form 12 June 2015 part of this productionconsumption energy system where the solar hot water storage (SHWS) system
Accepted 23 June 2015
is the producer subsystem and the chiller-building system is one of the consumer subsystems. In order
Available online 9 July 2015
to provide modularity to the control structure, the coordination between the subsystems is achieved
by designing interactive local predictive controllers. The consumer controllers compute a set of energy
Keywords:
demand proles sent to the producer controller which selects the prole that better minimizes the global
Absorption cooling system
Model predictive control
optimization cost function. In a rst part, the proposed control approach is tested on a simplied linear
Interactive controllers model composed of one producer and several consumers. In a second part, a more complex case is studied.
Hybrid systems A simplied model of an absorption cooling system is evaluated using the simulation tool TRNSYS. The
producer model is no longer linear, instead it is described by a nonlinear hybrid model which increases
the complexity of the optimization problem. The simulations results show that the performance of the
controller fullls the control objectives.
2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2015.06.076
0378-7788/ 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
48 E. Herrera et al. / Energy and Buildings 104 (2015) 4756
Nomenclature (i)
U2 ith consumer subsystem controlled variables vector
b number of energy proles sent to the producer [] []
D1 uncontrolled input vector of the producer system V occupancy vector during the simulation []
[] X1 state vector of the producer subsystem []
(i) (i)
D2 uncontrolled input vector of the ith consumer sys- X2 state vector of the ith consumer subsystem []
tem [] W12 interacting variable from the producer to the con-
gmax maximum value of the g variable [] sumer []
gmin minimum value of the g variable [] W21 interacting variable from the consumers to the pro-
IT total radiation on collector tilted surface [kW m2 ] ducer []
(i)
ITs total radiation on buildings wall oriented to the W21 interacting variable from the consumer i to the pro-
south [kW m2 ] ducer []
J2 set of b consumer optimization costs [] Y2
(i)
output vector (Indoor temperature) of the ith con-
J1 producer subsystem optimization cost [] sumer subsystem [ C]
(i) (i)
J2 ith consumer subsystem optimization cost [] Yr indoor temperature set-point of the ith consumer
JG global optimization cost [] subsystem [ C]
Jg calculated optimization cost using b proles [] x average of vector x []
opt
Jg calculated optimization cost of the centralized case
x(k) state vector over the prediction horizon Nh []
[] occupancy prole []
Jt set of chiller-building optimization costs [] set of consumers energy demand proles []
Jt,h one element of the set Jt [] h one element of the set []
m number of consumers [] switching mode []
max(x) maximum value of vector x [] sd standard deviation []
m 1, m 2 uid mass ow rates in the tank-chiller loop [kg h1 ] %subopt suboptimality percentage []
mch uid mass ow rate in the chiller evaporator circuit
[kg h1 ]
mh uid mass ow rate of the heat exchanger-tank loop resulting solution is close to the original optimization problem but
[kg h1 ] avoiding its complexity. The proposed methodology is generic but
ml uid mass ow rate in the chiller generator circuit it is illustrated on an example in which the energy producer is
[kg h1 ] the solar hot water storage (SHWS) system and one of the energy
ms uid mass ow rate of the heat exchanger-collector consumers is the absorption chiller which provides cooling to a
loop [kg h1 ] building.
(i) (i) (i)
Q1 , Q2 , Q3 weighting factors in the optimization cost This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 introduces the
(i)
function J2 , [] energy productionconsumption system modeling. Afterwards,
Q aux rate of energy input by the heating element [kW] the proposed MPC strategy is formulated in Section 3. In Section 4,
Q s rate of energy input by the solar power system [kW] the performance of the control strategy is rst evaluated by several
T1 , T2 , T3 temperatures in the different levels of the stratied quantitative studies using a simplied linear case of the energy
storage tank [ C] productionconsumption system. In order to evaluate the perfor-
Tchr temperature of the uid entering in the chiller from mance of the proposed control strategy using a more complex test
the building [ C] case, an abstract model of a solar absorption cooling system for
Tchs temperature of the uid sent into the building from thermal comfort control in buildings developed in the thermal sim-
the chiller [ C] ulation tool TRNSYS [18] is studied. The conclusions of this study
Text exterior temperature [ C] are provided in Section 6.
Th temperature of the uid entering the storage tank
from the solar source [ C] 2. The productionconsumption system
Ti temperature of the uid entering the collector from
the heat exchanger [ C] The productionconsumption system is composed of one pro-
Tl outlet water temperature of the chiller generator ducer and m consumers. The producer is a representation of the
[ C] SHWS system which control inputs U1 (k) are the water ow rates
To mixing valve outlet temperature [ C] in the circulation pumps and the auxiliary energy (which can
Top building operative temperature [ C] be continuously controlled). The producer has a nonlinear hybrid
Ts collector outlet temperature [ C] dynamics. The nonlinear characteristic is due to the dependency
Tset set-point temperature demanded by the chiller gen- between temperature and water ow rates circulating in the stor-
erator circuit [ C] age tank and the hybrid one is introduced by the tank operating
Tsbg set-point building operative temperature [ C] modes. Indeed, the hybrid behavior depends on the direction of
Twbp water boiling point temperature [ C] the water entering and leaving the tank.
U1 vector composed of the state and inputs of the pro- The energy producer S1 is described by a hybrid nonlinear dis-
ducer system [] crete model of the form
(i)
U 2 vector composed of the state and inputs of the ith X1 (k + 1) = f1(k) (U 1 (k), W21 (k)) (1)
consumer system []
2(i)
U set of b proles sent to the producer controller [] (k) = (U 1 (k), W21 (k)) (2)
U1 producer subsystem controlled variables vector [] where U 1 (k) = [X1 (k), U1 (k), D1 (k)]. The state vector of the system
is X1 (k) Rn1 . U1 (k) Rm1 is the vector of controlled variables and
D1 (k) Rp1 is the vector of non-controlled inputs. W21 (k) Rq1 is
E. Herrera et al. / Energy and Buildings 104 (2015) 4756 49
operate the energy consumer with as low as possible turn on/off to the producer controller. The set of these b solution is dened by
events in order to avoid damages in the subsystem and to improve 2(i) (k):
U
its performance.
Thus, the objective of the ith consumer can be translated into (i)
the optimization cost function as U2,1 (k)
.
..
Nh
(i) (i) (i) (i) d (i) (i) d
U =
2(i) (k) (i)
U2,2 (k) (17)
J2 (U2 (k)) = [Q1 U2 (k + j 1)d + Q2 U2 (k + j 1)d
.
j=1
.
d
.
(i) (i) (i)
+ Q3 (i) (k + j)Y2 (k + j) Yr (k + j)d ] (15) (i)
U2,b (k)
(i) (i) (i)
in which U2 (j) = U2 (j) U2 (j 1) represents the change in the
control input. The occupancy at time k + j is given by the discrete The cost function value of each of these control sequences has
also to be calculated, dening the set
(i) (i) (i) (i)
variable (i) (k) {0, 1}. Q1 , Q2 and Q3 are weighting coefcients. J2 (k):
An empiric tuning of the coefcients has been considered for these
studies. (i)
J2,1 (k)
In order to minimize the complexity of the optimization prob- (i)
lem, it can be seen from Eq. (15) that the consumer constraint J2,2 (k)
(i)
described in Eq. (13) is introduced in the optimization criterion by J2 (k) = (18)
(i) ..
adding a set-point variable Yr (k). The minimization of the differ- .
ence between the consumer output Y2 (k)(i) and the desired output (i)
(i) J2,b (k)
Yr (k) only takes place during the occupancy periods, i.e. (i) (k) is
different from zero.
The global problem of energy productionconsumption can be (i)
Note that J2,1 (k) is the best optimization cost of the local problem
stated as follows i.
m As the important point is to determinate the inuence of the
U (1) (k),
JG (U1 (k), . . ., U (m) (k))
= J1 (U1 (k))
+ (i) (i)
J2 (U2 (k)) (16) consumers on the producer, for each of these best b solution, the
2 2
i=1
interaction variable has to be evaluated:
Taking into account the output and input constraints stated in (i)
W21,1 (k)
Eqs. (3), (8) and (14), the global optimization problem is a mixed
(i)
integer nonlinear one. As the number of consumers m increases, W21,2 (k)
(i)
this kind of optimization problem may not be easy to solve from W21 (k) = (19)
a centralized control point of view. Then, the optimization prob- ..
.
lem is tackled in a straightforward manner: a partitioning approach
(i)
is considered where local controllers are designed for each sub- W21,b (k)
system. The interactions between subsystems is introduced by
proposing several consumption energy proles to the producer 21
(i)
Each consumer controller generates its own set W (k). Group-
which selects the best one according to its objectives but taking into
ing these sets creates a superset, denoted by (k). It represents
account the preferences of the consumers. The proposed control
structure is detailed in the following section. all the possible combinations of the consumers inuence on the
producer and its built from Eq. (9).
is dened as follows:
(k)
3.2. Proposed MPC architecture
In this strategy, the difculty level of solving the global mixed 1 (k)
integer nonlinear problem is decreased by considering a reduced
..
number of integer possibilities. A model predictive controller is .
developed for the producer S1 which solves an optimization accord- (k) =
h (k)
(20)
ing to the information sent by the m consumer controllers which
solve an integer optimization. ..
.
3.2.1. Consumer optimization problem
bm (k)
According to the optimization cost function described in Eq.
(15), the optimization problem for each of the m consumers can is the hth element of (k).
in which h (k) This matrix contains bm
be written. elements. As an illustrative example, let us consider the case with
Optimization problem. At a time k and given the prediction hori- m = 2 and b = 2.
(i)
zon Nh , the current state of the system X2 (k), the previous control
(i)
input U2 (k 1) and the prediction of the uncontrolled variables
1 (k)
(1)
W21,1 (k)
(2)
+ W21,1 (k)
(i)
(1)
D (k), the problem for the consumer predictive controller is to nd
2
2 (k)
W21,1 (k)
+ W (2) (k)
= =
(i) (i) 21,2
the best b solutions that minimize J2 (U2 (k)). (k) (21)
(1) (2)
(i)
As U2 (k + j 1) {0, 1}, this is a discrete optimization problem. 3 (k) W21,2 (k) + W21,1 (k)
The objective of this controller is to nd not only the best solution (1) (2)
4 (k) +W
W21,2 (k)
(k)
but also the best b solutions in order to offer a degree of freedom 21,2
E. Herrera et al. / Energy and Buildings 104 (2015) 4756 51
Fig. 2. Global control architecture. In the proposed control strategy, each of the consumer con-
trollers carries out an integer optimization which computes b
energy demand proles sent to the producer controller. For exam-
On the same way, the set of consumer optimization costs Jt (k) is ple, by considering m = 3 consumers which propose b = 3 energy
built. Each of the bm elements is the sum of the local optimization demand proles over a prediction horizon Nh = 8, the number of
costs of each consumer. For the same example as before, we have: optimizations performed by the producer controller is bm = 27.
(1) (2)
In a centralized approach, this number increases exponentially
Jt,1 (k) J2,1 (k) + J2,1 (k) to 2(mNh ) = 1.7 107 . To better explain this, consider the scenario
(1)
Jt,2 (k) J2,1 (k) + J2,2 (k)
(2) depicted in Fig. 3 where the number of consumers is m = 2 and each
Jt (k) =
J (k) = (22) of them proposes b = 3 energy demand proles over a prediction
t,3 J2,2 (k) + J2,1 (k)
(1) (2) horizon of Nh = 2. If a centralized optimization is used, the num-
ber of integer combinations is 2(mNh ) = 16. That is, 16 optimizations
Jt,4 (k) (1) (2)
J2,2 (k) + J2,2 (k) are performed by the producer controller. Instead, the proposed
control strategy only considers a given number b of combinations
which generates a reduced eld of possibilities, in this case, the
3.2.2. Producer optimization problem
number is bm = 9. It can be noticed that the combinations c1 c4 , c6 ,
The optimization problem for the producer can be stated as
c10 and c14 are not evaluated which may lead to a suboptimality in
follows:
the solution.
Optimization problem. At a time k and given the prediction hori-
zon Nh , the current state of the system X1 (k), the prediction of the
uncontrolled variables D1 (k) and the set of energy demand pro-
les (k) where each element of the set h (k) has an associated 4. Case study 1: A simplied linear case
optimization cost Jt,h (k), the optimization problem for the energy
producer predictive controller is given by 4.1. System description
h (k))
min J1 (U1 (k), + Jt,h (k) (23) The objective of this study is to evaluate the perfor-
U1 (k),h
mance of the proposed control approach applied to the energy
productionconsumption system described in Section 2. As the
subject to:
control problem is solved from a decentralized point of view, the
0
H1(k) (U 1 (k), h (k)) (24) solution obtained is suboptimal. Then, suboptimality studies are
required in order to compare the results of the proposed strategy
m
h {1, 2, . . ., b } (25) with the centralized case. Nevertheless, solving a nonlinear opti-
mization problem is very hard, and can also induce suboptimality.
The producer controller has to nd the optimal cost In order to only study the suboptimality of the method, we consider
h (k))
J1 (U1 (k), and has to select the best energy demand prole
a simple linear model, by simplifying the producer model, for which
among the bm available proles, taking into account its cor-
h (k) any linear solver can determinate exactly the optimal solution. This
responding optimization cost Jt,h (k)in the cost function. model is described as follows:
3.2.3. Control strategy algorithm X1 (k + 1) = A1 X1 (k) + (D1 (k) + B1 (U1 (k) W21 (k))) (26)
Fig. 2 displays the architecture of the proposed control strategy.
A detailed description of the algorithm is given below. m (i)
where W21 = W (k). Then, the producer is represented by a
i=1 21
(i)
solar and electric energy storage linear system. Considering that
1. Given the consumer state vectors X2 (k)i=1,...,m , the previous the consumers are also described by linear models as in Equations
(i)
control inputs 1)i=1,...,m , and the prediction of the dis-
U2 (k (10) and (11), the global optimization problem is a mixed integer
turbances D2 (k) over the prediction horizon Nh , the energy linear problem. This model simplication allows the assessment
consumer controllers compute the superset (k) of bm energy of the control strategy ensuring that the optimal solution can be
demands over the prediction horizon Nh as well as the associate found. The MATLAB function linprog is used for the resolution of
costs Jt (k). the producer optimization problem and a modied version of the
2. Given the producer state vector X1 (k), the set (k) provided by branch and bound-based algorithm [21] is developed for the con-
the energy consumer controllers and the prediction of the distur- sumers optimization problem resolution. This algorithm computes
bances D1 (k) over the prediction horizon Nh , the energy producer a set of optimal solutions which are sent to the producer controller.
52 E. Herrera et al. / Energy and Buildings 104 (2015) 4756
age %subopt (k) respectively. For example, the rst circle of the blue 20
curve corresponds to the mean of the suboptimality percentage
calculated from the comparison between the optimal case b = 32. 15
% optimization suboptimality storage system composed of solar collector, heat exchanger and
storage tank, the prediction model becomes nonlinear and hybrid.
15
optimal profiles
This entails the growth of the optimization complexity. In order not
partially optimal profiles to add further complexity to the global optimization problem, the
mean x
10 0.1*random profiles solar cooling installation studied here only considers one consumer
composed of an absorption chiller and a building.
5
Chiller-building system
5.2. Performance indexes included in the criterion are not only related to energy consumption
but to the constraints fulllment.
In order to assess the performance of the proposed control strat- From top to bottom of Fig. 7, the rst panel shows the storage
egy, the following indexes are introduced. They are calculated a tank temperature T1 (k) evolution (blue curve), its upper and lower
posteriori, after the simulation tests. bounds (red curves), and the chiller water ow rate (black curves).
For the producer controller: The value of the latter curve is modied in order to t in the gure.
The second panel of the gure represents the collector outlet ow
The rst indicator I (measured in kWh) quanties the use of temperature (blue curve) and its upper limit (red curve). The third
U1
and fourth panel are the water ow rate m h (k) in the SHWS system
auxiliary energy U1 (k) over the simulation from the initial time
ti until the nal time tf . The value of this indicator should be as
small as possible. It can be formalized as follows:
120
T (C)
tf
I = U1 (t)dt (38) 100
1
U1
ti 80
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
For the consumers: Time(hours)
Two indicators are related to the control input of each consumer. 150
T (C)
tf (i)
0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
I (i) = |U2 (k)| (39) Time(hours)
U k=ti
2
m (kg/hr)
(i)
0
I (i) = U2 (k) (40) 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
U k=ti
2 Time(hours)
Qaux (kW)
where V = [(i) (ti ), . . ., (i) (tf )]. It is supposed that ||V||1 is different 25
from zero.
20
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
5.3. Simulation results Time(hours)
1000
ml (kg/hr)
0.5 h. The criterion to select the prediction horizon has been chosen 1.5
2
Table 2 is, when only one energy prole is sent to the producer controller
Control strategies comparison.
(which is the case of the MPC-LRBC strategy), a larger number of
MPC-LRBC strategy MPC strategy sudden peaks in the ow rate (as the one shown in the rst day of
Fig. 7) occurs. This may imply that by sending more than one energy
T1 = 82 C T1 = 111 C T1 = 82 C T1 = 111 C
Top = 27 C Top = 27 C Top = 27 C Top = 27 C demand prole as in the MPC strategy, an improved solution to the
optimization problem is found from a practical point of view.
IU2 96 96 74 80
IU2 103 103 63.5 65
IY2 1.16 1.15 1.18 1.25
I 68.91 23.04 43.76 14.69 6. Conclusions
U1
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