Comfort optimization in a solar energy research center

Most of the time, people usually do their daily activities inside a building. Thus, it is necessary to reach comfort conditions for the people. This paper presents a hierarchical control system which allows to obtain a high comfort level, optimizing the use of HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) systems and actuators while minimizing energy consumption. Specifically, in this paper an analysis about the relation between comfort (thermal comfort, visual comfort and indoor-air quality) and different degrees of freedom to control inside a research center is done. The main objective is to obtain a cost function which allows to determine optimal conditions of humidity, temperature, illuminance and CO2 concentration minimizing energy consumption.