Potential Assessment of Rule-Based Control for Integrated Room Automation

SUMMARY In the Swiss research project OptiControl, the use of weather and occupancy forecast for optimal building control is investigated. The paper presents one result of the project: A potential assessment of both non-predictive and predictive rule-based control for integrated room automation. Different rule-based control algorithms – still the standard approach in today’s building automation – are examined and compared in a large-scale simulation study. To our knowledge, no such systematic potential assessment has been carried out so far. Control performance is measured by non-renewable primary energy (NRPE) usage while thermal, luminance and air quality comfort is maintained within desired ranges. The control algorithms show large performance variations, both between each other and depending on individual cases. Blind operation restrictions are found to heavily impact the control performance. Comparisons of the control performances with the so-called performance bound (theoretical minimum NRPE usage) suggest substantial potential for further NRPE savings by advanced control.