Currently, energy management strategies for buildings are mostly based on a concatenationof logical rules. Despite the fact that such rule based strategy can be easilyimplemented, it suffers from some limitations particularly when dealing with complexsituations. This thesis is concerned with the development and assessment ofModel Predictive Control (MPC) algorithms for energy management in buildings. Inthis work, a study of implementability of the control algorithm on a real-time hardwaretarget is conducted beside yearly simulations showing a substantial energy savingpotential. The thesis explores also the ability of MPC to deal with the diversity ofcomplex situations that could be encountered (varying energy price, power limitations,local storage capability, large scale buildings).MPC is based on the use of a model of the building as well as weather forecasts andoccupany predictions in order to find the optimal control sequence to be implementedin the future. Only the first element of the sequence is actually applied to the building.The best control sequence is found by solving, at each decision instant, an on lineoptimization problem. MPC’s ability to handle constrained multivariable systems aswell as economic objectives makes this paradigm particularly well suited for the issueof energy management in buildings.This thesis proposes the design of a distributed predictive control scheme to controlthe indoor conditions in each zone of the building. The goal is to control thefollowing simultaneously in each zone of the building: indoor temperature, indoorCO2 level and indoor illuminance by acting on all the actuators of the zone (HVAC,lighting, shading). Moreover, the case of multi-source buildings is also explored, (e.g.power from grid + local solar production), in which each power source is characterizedby its own dynamic tariff and upper limit. In this context, zone decisions can nolonger be performed independently. To tackle this issue, a coordination mechanismis proposed. A particular attention is paid to computational effectiveness of the proposedalgorithms. This CIFRE2 Ph.D. thesis was prepared within the Gipsa-lab laboratoryin partnership with Schneider-Electric in the scope of the HOMES program(www.homesprogramme.com).
