A fuzzy logic approach for economic energy-efficient heat pump operation in thermal building control

Advanced thermal control has great potential to decrease energy consumption in buildings. Thereby, encountering the balance between thermal comfort, and electricity load reduction is a challenge. For this, advanced control systems need to be developed that can respond to external signals such as electricity prices and are robust to different types of buildings to be widely utilized. In this paper, we propose and investigate two fuzzy control systems, an economic-energy-efficient controller and a comfort controller. The comfort controller focuses on thermal comfort, whereas the economic-energy-efficient controller is attentive to electricity prices and the energy efficiency of the heat pump. For the simulation, we use a reduced-order building model identified by measurements of a real-world building. Furthermore, we compare the proposed controllers with a hysteresis controller as a lower benchmark control strategy. Simulation results reveal that an economic-energy-efficient controller can reduce electricity consumption by 14.92% and costs by 18.41 % when compared to a benchmark controller and with mean thermal discomfort of 0.216 °C over an evaluation period of two months. The comfort controller has slightly smaller costs and electricity consumption than the hysteresis one, but less zone temperature fluctuations, enhancing the quality of controlled zone temperature and occupants’ comfort.