Comparison of apartment building heating control systems

This paper presents a case study that displays benefits of replacing the control system of an apartment buildings radiator heating system and domestic hot water system with a PID controller. The original control system was inefficient and resulted in unnecessary stress on the boilers as the result of them turning on and off at a greater frequency than required. By comparing collected data for both heating systems boiler operation and system temperatures, it was found that the new PID controller reduces the frequency at which boilers are fired as well as lowering the gas consumption of the heating systems. To allow the controllers to be compared using the same circumstances such as outside temperature and set points a simulation was created. The simulation showed an average of 55% less boiler firings and 20% reduction in gas usage for the radiator system.