Hybrid Predictive Control for Building Climate Control and Energy Optimization

The growing world's energy use and energy prices have raised a concern about the efficiency of energy management systems, energy resources and environmental impacts. In developed countries, buildings are accredited for 40% of the global energy consumption, being the heating and cooling system one of the main causes of it; as the growth of population, comfort levels and services are directly related to thermal systems. For this reason we present a Hybrid Model Predictive Control (HMPC) strategy to control all rooms of a building apartment in a centralized manner. This approach decreases energy consumption, maintaining comfort levels in an acceptable range, and showing that MPC control solutions can be substituted by more complex controls (as HMPC) to manage building thermal systems.