Optimal Exergy-wise Predictive Control for a Combined MicroCSP and HVAC System in a Building

This paper presents a new control method to minimize the energy consumption of a micro-scale concentrated solar power (MicroCSP) system and building heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system. A new realtime optimal control method is proposed using the concept of “exergy” and model predictive control (MPC) techniques. To achieve this, first law of thermodynamics (FLT) and second law of thermodynamics (SLT) based mathematical models of MicroCSP are developed and integrated into a model of an office building located at Michigan Technological University. Then, an exergy-wise MPC framework is designed to optimize MicroCSP operation in accordance with the building HVAC needs. The new controller reduces exergy destruction by 28%, compared to a common rule-based controller (RBC). This leads to 23% energy saving, compared to the applied RBC.