Demand shedding with thermal mass in office buildings

This paper examines optimal control strategies for temperature set point in office buildings. The control strategies included a base control strategy of fixed temperature set point and an advanced strategy. The advanced control for utilizing building thermal mass adjusts the temperature set point while assuring indoor thermal comfort. The optimization problem for control strategy is formulated based on energy consumption and constrained by the thermal comfort index and thermal balance models. The optimization scheme/model is applied to a case study for a building floor in Jinan weather. The simulation software adopt EnergyPlus V3.1 software. Energy savings up to 12.3% were achieved during the summer season with the dynamic optimized strategies when compared with the conventional base strategy while comfort was satisfied.