Design of a fuzzy-based control system for energy saving and users comfort

Building automation systems (BAS) allow automated control of equipment and eventually control of indoor conditions. Indeed, BAS are becoming a powerful tool to improve the energy performance and occupant comfort, introducing the concept of “intelligent building”. At this regard, there is a need to build a knowledge base and to develop suitable algorithms for a smart management. Fuzzy logic is a valuable candidate for building robust algorithms. The aim of the present work is to demonstrate that a fuzzy logic approach is able to optimize the level of energy performance and comfort taking advantage of solar energy and BAS in an office space. In fact, solar energy can be used in the form of daylight and solar heat gain, benefiting both energy performance and psychophysical comfort, provided that dynamic façade elements and integrated multi criteria decision making methods are used. In this paper has been developed a virtual model of a smart office room (SOR), equipped with dynamic shading, lighting and air conditioning control system. Different scenarios were considered as follows: i) control versus no-control; ii) economy versus comfort mode; iii) summer versus winter scenario; iv) fluorescent versus LED lighting; v) dimming versus switching lighting control. The configured control model makes comfort mode energy performance similar to that of economy mode, thus demonstrating that the use of solar energy and BAS benefits energy saving and comfort as well. In addition, both economy comfort mode exhibited a better energy performance than non-controlled scenarios. In conclusion, the proposed model is a valuable tool to optimize comfort features and yet decreasing the energy demand.