Large-scale Area Complex Adaptive Control of Building Multi-type Air-conditioning Facilities for Real-Time Pricing

Abstract

In preperation for real-time pricing in the future, we consider a control method to adjust the trade-off between economics and room temperature comfort of the building multi-type air conditioners installed in the entire building. In this control method, a candidate permutation of the power limitation command given to each outdoor unit is searched, but the search space increases exponentially with the number of outdoor units. The calculation time becomes a problem in large-scale facilities with several dozen outdoor units. In this research, we propose a new search method for large-scale permutation based on practical judgment using the distribution characteristic of the search space and a parallel search algorithm. A search simulation is performed using this method, and the facility scale at which the proposed method can be applied considering both economic constraints and system constraints is clarified. As a result, it is shown that RTP adaptive control using the proposed method is possible for up to 30 outdoor units, a total floor area of 4000m² to 8000m², and buildings with 5 to 10 stories. It is also shown that the search for the large-scale permutation can be completed within 98% of the total time, i.e., within 30 seconds of the search time limit’ by the proposed method, and the control cycle is established.