Design of HVAC Control System for Building Energy Management Systems

This paper presents the design of control system using Python to control the operation of HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) equipment in a BEMS (Building Energy Management System). The main objective of this project is control the turn on and turn off of the compressor used in the HVAC equipment for the cooling stage, trying to reduce the amount of energy used for this task. BEMS is an automatic control system to manage the amount of energy consumption of an entire Building with the objective of achieve energy savings without sacrificing comfort of the occupants. The designed control system for the HVAC equipment is capable to work with a temperature sensor to control the temperature of a space in cold conditions trying to reduce the amount of energy used for this task and trying to maintain comfort conditions for the occupants of the mentioned space. The control system is developed in a Raspberry Pi and programmed y Python using an on/off strategy control firstly. The Raspberry Pi is connected to a XBEE module for communications purpose with a sensors and a solid state switch used to control the compressor of the HVAC equipment. The developed control system is capable to control the set point of the HVAC equipment with on/off control strategy using the value of the sensed temperature.