A Model Predictive Approach for Ventilation System Control in Energy Efficient Buildings

Building's active equipment, such as heating/air-conditioning and ventilation, are considered among the main energy-hungry consumers. Control and automation systems have been designed in the past decades for improving the overall building energy efficiency while satisfying the occupants' comfort (e.g., thermal and indoor air quality). For instance, advance control approaches for standalone ventilation systems have been proposed in order to improve the indoor air quality while enhancing the energy cost saving. In this paper, we investigate the use of model predictive control strategy for ventilation systems. Simulations have been conducted and obtained results show the effectiveness of the proposed predictive control approach in reducing energy consumption while maintaining a good indoor air quality.