Operation optimization for centrifugal chiller plants using continuous piecewise linear programming

Centrifugal chiller plants (CCP) are widely used in air conditioning systems, its operation optimization can save lots of energy and has great significance in environmental protection. The optimization is a large-scale nonlinear problem and there is no practical algorithm until now. This paper proposes a new method to do this operation optimization using continuous piecewise linear programming (CPWLP). The main idea is transforming the nonlinear problem into a series of linear programmings by approximating the original system using piecewise linear representation. For CPWLP, some properties are discussed and an algorithm is given. Using CPWLP, CCP system is optimized and its energy performance is improved significantly.