Experimental evaluation of an HVAC system under dynamic pricing with comfort constraints

This paper deals with the problem of Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) control optimization under dynamic pricing policies. In contrast to other appliances, the HVAC system entails a more challenging problem since not only the cost should be taken into account but also the user comfort temperature. We design a mechanism that firstly estimates and predicts the temperature considering HVAC configuration and then optimizes the energy cost assuming a given electricity price policy. In addition, we present a technique that relaxes the temperature constraints with the aim of further reducing the energy consumption. The proposed solutions are validated in a real scenario where a heating system is controlled by a processing unit that monitors the temperature using wireless modules and the electricity price in a given time instant which is given by the utility.