Triggering Optimal Control of Air Conditioning Systems by Event-Driven Mechanism: Comparing Direct and Indirect Approaches

Real-time optimal control of air conditioning (AC) is important, and should respond to the condition changes for an energy efficient operation. The traditional optimal control triggering mechanism is based on the “time clock” (called time-driven), and has certain drawbacks (e.g., delayed or unnecessary actions). Thus, an event-driven optimal control (EDOC) was proposed. In previous studies, the part-load ratio (PLR) of chiller plants was used as events to trigger optimal control actions. However, PLR is an indirect indicator of operation efficiency, which could misrepresent the system coefficient of performance (SCOP). This study thus proposes to directly monitor the SCOP deviations from the desired SCOP values. Two events are defined based on transient and cumulative SCOP deviations, which are systematically investigated in terms of energy performance and robustness. The PLR-based and SCOP-based EDOC are compared, in which energy saving and optimal control triggering time are analyzed. Results suggest that SCOP-based EDOC has better energy performance compared with PLR-based EDOC, but the frequent event triggering might happen due to the parameter uncertainty. For actual applications, the SCOP-based EDOC can be recommended when the ideal SCOP model is available with the properly-handled uncertainty. Nevertheless, the PLR-based EDOC could still be a more practical option to replace the traditional TDOC considering its acceptable energy performance and better robustness.