Energy optimal control of a residential space-conditioning system based on sensible heat transfer modeling

Nowadays most HVAC systems for residential building in the Unites States use a single-zone, two-position control system which is simple and easy to manage. However, this two-position control system has its disadvantage for its unsatisfactory thermal comfort and energy efficiency. This paper presents a proportional control system for the residential building by seting up the dynamic simulation for the building and the control system. The state-space method is used to model the building system and the simulation code is implemented on MATLABTM. Under this model, optimization of the controller is possible and implemented. The thermal comfort and energy efficiency are compared under the different schemes. It has been found that proportional control is advantageous to the two-position control for the thermal comfort while there is not much difference in energy consumption between two control schemes. However, in this work the furnace was operated without any minimum run time and under continuous data sampling.