Smart Petri Nets Temperature Control Framework for Reducing Building Energy Consumption

Energy consumption is steadily increasing in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), which imposes continuous strains on the electrical load. Furthermore, consumption rationalization measures do not seem to improve the situation in any way. Therefore, the implementation of energy saving policies become an urgent need. This paper targets developing a smart energy-saving framework for integrating new advanced technologies and conventional Air Conditioning (AC) systems to achieve a comfortable environment, optimum energy efficiency and profitability. In this paper, a three-stage smart control framework, which allows controlling room temperature according to the user’s preferences, is implemented. The first stage is a user identification process. In the second stage, a Petri Nets (PN) model monitors users and sends their preferred temperatures to the third stage. A PID controller is implemented in the third stage to regulate room temperatures. The interconnected sensing and actuating devices in this smart environment are configured to provide users with comfort and energy saving functionality. Experimental results show the good performances and features of the proposed approach. The proposed smart framework reduces the energy consumption of the current ON/OFF controller (219.09 kW) by a significant amount which reaches (116.58 kW) by ratio about 46.79%. Reducing energy consumption is one of these important features in addition to system reactivity and user comfort.