Formulation and implementation of a model predictive control (MPC) strategy for a PCM-driven building ventilation cooling system

This paper aims to integrate a phase change material (PCM) based ventilation cooling system with a building zone model and study the feasibility and overall performance of model predictive control (MPC) on such a system. To achieve this, a surrogate model of a PCM ventilation unit model was previously developed and validated based on results from an actual experimental setup. Here the PCM model is integrated with a calibrated grey-box office zone model as a system emulator. The simulation results of the whole system are performed under real occupancy and climate conditions. An MPC framework controlling supply airflow rate of the PCMbased ventilation cooling system has been developed and tested on the emulator under summer weather conditions. The performance of the entire system is compared to a conventional system employing rule-based control (RBC) approach. Results show that PCM-based ventilation cooling system allows to mitigate indoor zone thermal discomfort. MPC can achieve less energy consumption, but it does not necessarily result in less thermal discomfort as compared to RBC.