Modular Modeling and Optimized Scheduling of Building Energy Systems Based on Mixed Integer Programming

TL;DR

This paper presents a modular optimization framework using Mixed Integer Programming for building energy systems, including a novel MIP model for fuel cell CHP plants, to improve energy efficiency and sustainability.

Contribution

It introduces a new MIP model for fuel cell CHP plants and applies modular optimization to enhance building energy system management.

Findings

Significant increase in heat pump energy efficiency.

Effective scheduling of decentralized energy systems.

First MIP model for dynamic fuel cell CHP behavior.

Abstract

Almost climate neutral buildings are one of the core goals in terms of sustainability. Beside the support of the necessary design decisions for an integrated, interoperable, ecological and economical operation of building energy systems, innovative management solutions for scheduling the operation of decentralized energy systems are of great importance. The challenge is optimal interaction between energy system components in terms of own consumption, energy efficiency and resource consumption as well as greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve these goals a modular optimization approach based on Mixed Integer Programming is proposed. In detail, and to our knowledge the first time, a MIP model for the dynamic behavior of fuel cell Combined Heat and Power plants is presented. Our approach is evaluated for the operation of heat pumps showing that their energy efficiency can be increased significantly.