Heating System Supervisory Control for Residential Energy Conservation

For most households space heating and domestic hot water production constitute the largest portion of energy consumption, which for a typical home space and water heating can comprise over 60% of the total energy usage. Therefore significant energy savings can be accomplished by using energy sources and systems for heating more efficiently. An approach discussed in this work uses system controls to better manage available resources and balance user comfort with efficient use of energy systems. In this work the results of a supervisory control approach applied to residential heating system are presented. The control system is characterized by a supervisory unit that controls the subsystems. The subsystems of this analysis include a thermal source and an energy storage unit. Dynamic thermal system control is demonstrated using a real-time, pseudo-hardware-in-the-loop test bench. The results show the potential reduction of energy consumption through advanced control implementation.