Model Predictive Control of thermal energy storage in building cooling systems

A preliminary study on the control of thermal energy storage in building cooling systems is presented. We focus on buildings equipped with a water tank used for actively storing cold water produced by a series of chillers. Typically the chillers are operated each night to recharge the storage tank in order to meet the buildings demand on the following day. A Model Predictive Control (MPC) for the chillers operation is designed in order to optimally store the thermal energy in the tank by using predictive knowledge of building loads and weather conditions. This paper addresses real-time implementation and feasibility issues of the MPC scheme by using a (1) simplified hybrid model of the system, (2) periodic robust invariant sets as terminal constraints and (3) a moving window blocking strategy.