Multi-objective optimization of the HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) system performance

A data-driven approach to optimize the total energy consumption of the HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) system in a typical office facility is presented. A multi-layer perceptron ensemble is selected to build the total energy model integrating three indoor air quality models, the facility temperature model, the facility relative humidity model, and the facility CO2 concentration model. To balance the energy consumption and the indoor air quality, a quad-objective optimization problem is constructed. The problem is solved with a modified particle swarm optimization algorithm producing control settings of supply air temperature and static pressure of the air handling unit. By assigning different weights to the objectives to the model, the generated control settings optimize HVAC system with the trade-off between the energy consumption and the facility thermal comfort. Significant energy savings can be obtained even with air quality constraint.