Controlled adjustments of indoor microclimate parameters for building’s energy demand management

Indoor air quality and thermal comfort are regulated by heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system modules, which play an increasing role in integrating buildings into future energy networks as active nodes permitting flexible consumption management. A building’s HVAC devices are controlled by automation and control systems consisting of basic and supervisory control layers. Local discrete-mode controllers of HVAC system devices, which receive control signals proposed by a supervisory control method, cause a performance gap between these control layers. Here, we study the performance gap of discrete-mode controllers and examine how such controllers can maintain set-points, using simulation studies developed in the TRNSYS software environment. Considering a set of different devices operating within one room to manage its indoor air temperature and quality, we show that coordination of their discrete-mode controllers may yield a sizeable, larger than 10%, reduction of the heat use and average thermal load. However, such coordination may also entail indoor comfort violation, meaning that there should be a trade-off between comfort and energy performance. We propose controlled adjustments of indoor microclimate parameters to manage heat use (kWh) and thermal load (kW) within demand-side management programs. According to our simulation studies for discrete-mode controllers, the heat use and average thermal load may be reduced by up to 14.1%, ceding the indoor temperature set-point profile by 1 °C and the proportion of fresh air in the room by 50%. Hence, the controlled adjustments of various indoor microclimate parameters would be an excellent approach for integrating HVAC system field devices with discrete-mode controllers, and thereby buildings, into future energy networks providing them extra flexibility.