Thermal markets for controlling building environments

Abstract

In spite of the revolutionary advances in digital technology and operations research that have taken place in the last decades, the state of the art in building environmental management does not often reflect those improvements. For instance, many modern buildings are still thermally controlled via pneumatic systems, while lighting in the offices is often under manual and inefficient control. Further, many control algorithms use PID (proportional integral derivative) controls, which, while very general, require substantial investments in time to operate optimally. A working solution to the problem of thermal resource distribution in a building is demonstrated using a market-based system. In this system computational agents representing individual temperature controllers bid to buy or sell cool or warm air. They do so via a double-blind computerized auction that is moderated by a central computer auctioneer. The auctioneer sees to it that no agent buys resources for more than its bid and no agent sells resources for less than its bid. The market system has been implemented and runs on a regular basis as part or a building energy management system. Results show that the thermal auction leads to an equitable temperature distribution throughout the area under its control without incurring anymore » extra costs such as excessive actuator movement.« less