A Supervisory Model Predictive Control Framework for Dual Temperature Setpoint Optimization

In this paper, a model predictive control (MPC) framework for building energy system setpoint optimization is developed and tested. The performance of the MPC framework is presented in comparison to a baseline case, where a fixed setpoint schedule is used. To simulate the MPC procedure, an EnergyPlus building model is used to represent the actual building that the optimal setpoints are applied to, and a Gaussian process (GP) regression meta-model is used in the MPC procedure that generates the optimal setpoints. The performance outputs that are used for evaluation are total heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) energy usage and the Fanger predicted mean vote (PMV) thermal comfort measure. The inputs for the GP regression meta-models are selected to be representative of data points that could be obtained by modern supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems to support data-driven building models. The supervisory MPC framework is capable of reducing the total energy usage with minor adjustments in thermal comfort.