Energy and Buildings 141 (2017) 308–320

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Energy and Buildings

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enbuild

Optimal coordination of air conditioning system and personal fans for

building energy efficiency improvement夽
Zhanbo Xu a,∗ , Shuo Liu a , Guoqiang Hu b , Costas J. Spanos c
a
Berkeley Education Alliance for Research in Singapore, 068898, Singapore
b
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 639798, Singapore
c
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Air temperature and speed play a critical role in the thermal sensation of comfort felt by occupants,
Received 16 December 2016 especially in the tropics. It is of great practical interest to coordinate air conditioning and mechanical
Received in revised form 20 February 2017 ventilation (ACMV) system and personal fans so as to enhance building demand response (DR) capa-
Accepted 21 February 2017
bility while minimizing energy cost in response to a specific electricity price signal and maintaining a
Available online 24 February 2017
thermal comfort level. In this paper, an optimization problem of coordinating ACMV and personal fans
is addressed, which captures the coupling between ACMV and fans. A Lagrangian relaxation-based algo-
Keywords:
rithm is developed to solve the problem by individually solving the subproblems of ACMV and personal
Building energy management
Coordination of air conditioning and
fans with Lagrangian multipliers as the coordinated signals. This algorithm can separate the calculation
mechanical ventilation (ACMV) system and of the cooling effect from the optimization procedure, so we do not have to solve the problem using
fans a non-analytical model for evaluating the cooling effect provided by the fans. The performance of the
Lagrangian relaxation proposed method is evaluated and validated using experimental and simulation results. Both the results
Optimization show that coordinating ACMV and fans can substantially enhance building DR capability, save energy
Thermal comfort cost, and also improve customized thermal comfort microenvironment.
© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction ing in DR programs, buildings can manage their demand profiles

Smart grid technologies provide a fundamental framework and
technical support to deliver electricity in a smart and efficient way
from generation to end-use customers, alleviating the energy cri-
sis and environmental pollution [1,2]. Among the various methods,
demand response (DR) is an effective way to facilitate the energy
efficiency of both the power grid and the end-use customers [1],
[3–6]. Building sector accounts for more than 72% of electricity con-
sumption [7]. Especially, about 40% of building energy is consumed
by air conditioning and mechanical ventilation (ACMV) system for
cooling in hot-humid environment. On the one hand, by participat-
夽 This work was supported by the Republic of Singapore’s National Research Foun-
dation through a grant to the Berkeley Education Alliance for Research in Singapore
(BEARS) for the Singapore-Berkeley Building Efficiency and Sustainability in the
Tropics (SinBerBEST) Program. BEARS has been established by the University of Cal-
ifornia, Berkeley as a center for intellectual excellence in research and education in
Singapore.
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: zhanbo.xu@bears-berkeley.sg (Z. Xu),
shuo.liu@bears-berkeley.sg (S. Liu), gqhu@ntu.edu.sg (G. Hu), spanos@berkeley.edu
(C.J. Spanos).
in response to price signals to minimize the overall energy cost
without sacrificing thermal comfort of occupants. This is due to
the building thermal storage process and flexible requirements of
occupants. On the other hand, this building DR action can pro-
vide benefits to the power grid, such as reducing the peak loads
and improving the efficiency and safety of the power grid. There-
fore, operational optimization of buildings for DR is becoming a
necessity, and some results have been reported. For example, Guan
et al. [8] developed a method based on microgrid to reduce peak
loads and minimize building energy cost. Maasoumy et al. [9]
investigated how to take advantage of building flexibility in a con-
tractual DR program, and proposed a method for buildings to decide
their flexibility. Anvari-Moghaddam et al. [10] developed a home
energy management system to obtain an optimal strategy of energy
devices and DR actions at every decision stages.
Since human thermal comfort is strongly related to the building
demand profiles, the requirement of thermal comfort is generally
considered as a primary constraint for the DR-driven optimization
of the building operation [3], [9–11]. In most of the existing works,
the DR-driven optimization is achieved by adjusting the air temper-
ature of ACMV system, which is the conventional way of cooling
in hot-humid environment. However, this type of DR approach

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2017.02.051
0378-7788/© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 Z. Xu et al. / Energy and Buildings 141 (2017) 308–320
Fig. 1. Coordination of ACMV system and personal fans.
may significantly increase indoor air temperature and thus reduce
human thermal comfort. Furthermore, the DR capability achieved
by ACMV is limited due to the following reasons: 1) temperature
regulation achieved by ACMV provides limited flexibility, and 2)
diversity in thermal comfort of occupants may further constrain
the range of allowable temperatures. Air movement provided by
personal fans is an energy-effective approach to compensate the
impact of increased air temperature on the thermal comfort since
air speed as well as air temperature plays a critical role in the ther-
mal sensation of comfort. Joint utilization of ACMV and personal
fans for cooling in tropical buildings has recently attracted more
attention for energy saving.
Many studies on thermal comfort showed that elevated air
speed generated by fans can offset impact of high temperature on
thermal comfort [12–17]. The statistical and experimental results
obtained from these studies also showed that personal fans (such
as desk and stand fans) can offer a low power alternative to regu-
lating thermal comfort. As shown in Fig. 1, one ACMV system and
several personal fans are used for cooling a room. Through coordi-
nating ACMV and fans, thermal comfort of occupants is determined
by joint adjustment of both shared indoor air temperature and per-
sonally controlled air speed. Since the energy consumption of fans
is lower than that of ACMV, coordinating ACMV and fans may relax
the limitation of temperature regulation of ACMV, thus enhanc-
ing building DR capability. Therefore, building energy cost can be
further reduced without sacrificing (or even with improving) the
thermal satisfaction of occupants. Additionally, it can contribute to
more efficient operation of the power grid. However, few efforts
have been made on studying how to jointly determine the opera-
tional strategy of ACMV and fans by taking advantage of building
DR capability to minimize the energy cost.
In this paper, we study the DR-driven optimization problem
of coordinated scheduling of ACMV and personal fans. The objec-
tive is to jointly determine the operation of ACMV and fans in
response to an electricity price signal such that the energy cost
over the scheduling horizon is minimized without sacrificing the
thermal comfort of occupants. However, several challenges need
to be addressed. First, thermal comfort is determined by the corre-
lation of indoor air temperature and speed that couples ACMV and
personal fans across time. Furthermore, coordinated scheduling of
these appliances is nested with the complicated and multi-stage
building thermal dynamic process. Second, the impact of elevated
air speed on thermal sensation is generally formulated by the
standard effective temperature (SET) model that is recommended
by American society of heating refrigerating and air-conditioning
engineers (ASHRAE) standard [18]. The SET model is non-analytical
and should be thus solved by iterative numerical methods. There-
fore, it may be computationally infeasible to directly solve the
optimization problem involving the SET model. Third, occupants
have different requirements of thermal comfort. This diversity in
thermal comfort has huge impact on coordinated operation of
ACMV and fans, and thus needs to be addressed.
309
Through addressing the aforementioned challenges, we make
the following contributions in this paper. First, an optimization
problem of coordinating ACMV and personal fans is formulated as
a mixed integer programming problem, which captures the cou-
pling between ACMV and fans, the diversity in thermal comfort, and
the multi-stage decision-making process. The underlying build-
ing DR capability enhanced by coordinating ACMV and fans is also
discussed. Second, a Lagrangian relaxation (LR)-based approach is
developed to solve the optimization problem. By introducing the
Lagrangian multipliers to relax the coupled constraints of thermal
comfort, the original problem is decomposed into two subproblems
including a subproblem of ACMV and a subproblem of personal
fans. Following this approach, an LR-based algorithm is developed
to obtain the near-optimal solution by iteratively solving these two
subproblems with the Lagrangian multipliers as the coordinated
signals. By establishing a mapping from energy consumption to
cooling effect provided by personal fans for all discrete fan speed
settings, this algorithm can separate the calculation of the cool-
ing effect from the optimization procedure, so we do not have to
solve the problem using the non-analytical SET model for evalu-
ating the cooling effect provided by the fans. Furthermore, since
each fan controls customized thermal microenvironment for each
occupant, the calculation of the subproblem of fans can be indi-
vidually performed. So the computational time per iteration of the
proposed algorithm is independent of the number of the fans. The
convergence of this algorithm is proven in Section 3. Third, the per-
formance of the proposed method is tested based on an office room
in Singapore with three types of electricity price schemes. Both
the experimental and simulation results show that as compared to
using only ACMV, coordinating ACMV and fans can not only save
energy cost significantly by enhancing building DR capability, but
also improve thermal satisfaction of occupants. In addition, it can
also provide more benefits to the power grid, such as the reduc-
tion of the peak loads and the contribution to the more efficient
operation of the power grid.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The problem for-
mulation is presented in Section 2. The LR-based approach and
the algorithm are provided in Section 3. The set-up of the experi-
ment in an office room is presented in Section 4. The performance
of coordinating ACMV and fans is evaluated and validated using
experimental and simulation results in Section 5. The limitation of
the proposed work and the corresponding future works are dis-
cussed in Section 6. A brief conclusion is given in Section 7.
2. Problem formulation
A daily optimization problem of coordinating ACMV and per-
sonal fans based on a discrete-time formulation is presented in
this section. The scheduling horizon is discretized into K stages.
The objective is to minimize the overall energy cost in response
to a specific time-of-use (TOU) price while satisfying the thermal
comfort of occupants over all stages. Note that the coordination of
ACMV and fans may be suitable for energy cost saving of cooling. So
the problem formulation is developed based on an office-building
environment for cooling. In the following, the model for the ther-
mal comfort of occupants and the energy dynamics of a room are
presented in Sections 2.1 and 2.2, respectively. The objective func-
tion and the analysis of building DR capability enhanced by the
coordination of ACMV and fans are shown in Section 2.3.
2.1. Model for thermal comfort with elevated air speed
Predicted mean vote (PMV) model developed in [19] is widely
used to predict thermal comfort of occupant, which captures the
influence of personal factors (such as metabolic rate and clothing
310 Z. Xu et al. / Energy and Buildings 141 (2017) 308–320
of occupant) and environmental factors (such as air temperature,
mean radiant temperature, air speed, and relative humidity) on
thermal comfort. It establishes a mapping from the above factors
to the comfort index scale of [−3, +3]. But the PMV model is devel-
oped with a condition of low air speed (≤ 0.2 m/s). To elaborately
describe the thermal comfort with elevated air speed provided by
fans, an integration of the SET model and PMV model is used in this
paper, which is recommended by ASHRAE standard [18]. As shown
in [18], the calculation of thermal comfort index with an elevated
air speed consists of the following three steps.
First, at stage k (k = 1,2,. . .,K), for given environmental and per-
sonal variables, including an elevated air speed, vki , for occupant i
(denote the occupant index by i), an indoor air temperature, tak , a
mean radiant temperature, trk , a relative humidity, rhk , a metabolic
rate, M, and a clothing insulation, Icl , the SET value can be calculated
by:
setik = SET (tak , trk , vki , rhk , M, Icl )
where setik is the SET index at k for occupant i, and SET(·) indicates
the SET model consisting of a set of equations that are developed
based on the 2-node model developed in [33]. The SET model is non-
analytical and its calculation relies on iterative numerical methods.
The relevant variables for calculating the SET value are shown in the
bracket of the right-hand-side of (1). In this paper, the SET value is
calculated using the codes recommended by ASHRAE standard [18].
Second, the elevated air speed is replaced by still air speed, vstill ,
which is equal to 0.2 m/s [18]. The indoor air temperature and the
mean radiant temperature are adjusted according to the cooling
effect of the elevated air speed. Note that the cooling effect at k
for occupant i, ceik , is defined as the value that, when subtracted
equally from both the indoor air temperature and the mean radiant
temperature, yields the same SET value under the still air speed as
in the above SET calculation under the elevated air speed [18]. So
we have:
SET (tak , trk , vki , ) = SET (tak − ceik , trk − ceik , vstill , )
where  indicates the invariant parameters in the calculation of
the cooling effect.
Third, the PMV value adjusted with the elevated air speed is
calculated using the PMV model with the adjusted indoor air tem-
perature, the adjusted mean radiant temperature, and the still air
speed. The PMV model developed in [19] is nonlinear and non-
convex, so this may pose a computational challenge to calculating
the PMV values integrated with the optimization. In order to over-
come this challenge, many efforts have been made to develop
approximate PMV models for efficient calculation of the PMV
value in optimization procedure [20–22]. In this paper, a piecewise
linearization-based approximate PMV model, which was devel-
oped and validated in [20], is adopted. In this approximate PMV
model, the ranges of the indoor air temperature and the mean
radiant temperature are divided into several segments. In each seg-
ment, the original PMV model is approximated by linear equations.
The absolute error of this approximation is less than 0.005 [20].
Based on this approximate PMV model, the PMV value with the
elevated air speed for occupant i at k, pmvki , is calculated as below:
pmvki = fpmv,f,j (tak − ceik , trk − ceik , tcl,i
k
, vstill , pka,f , M, W, Icl , hc )
k
tcl,i = fcl,f,j (tak − ceik , trk − ceik , vstill , M, W, Icl , hc )
where fpmv,f,j (·) and fcl,f,j (·) indicate the linear functions when the
adjusted indoor air temperature and the adjusted mean radiant
temperature are respectively within the f-th and j-th segments of
their ranges, which are used to calculate the PMV value and the
clothing surface temperature, tcl,i k , respectively; pk is the water
a,f
vapor pressure at k when the adjusted indoor air temperature is
within its f-th segment; W is the rate of mechanical work; and hc
is the convective heat transfer coefficient that can be calculated
with the still air speed. The relevant variables for calculating the
PMV value with the elevated air speed are shown in (3)–(4). The
details of (3)–(4) which are obtained by approximating the original
PMV model can be found in [20]. Since we focus on evaluating how
the temperatures and the elevated air speed influence the thermal
comfort, the metabolic rate, the rate of mechanical work, and the
clothing insulation are assumed to be known in advance. Further-
more, the mean radiant temperature is assumed to be equal to the
air temperature [18].
Based on the three steps mentioned above, the PMV value
affected by the cooling effect provided by fans can be obtained
to describe the thermal comfort of occupants with the elevated
air speed. However, due to the non-analytical property of the SET
model, the calculation of the cooling effect based on (2) may pose a
computational challenge to directly solving the optimization prob-
(1) lem. In order to overcome this challenge, an algorithm is developed
in Section 3 to separate this calculation from the optimization pro-
cedure.
When an occupant is present in a room, the PMV value which
is calculated with his (or her) microenvironment should be limited
within a given comfortable range. So the constraint for the thermal
requirement of occupant i at k is given by:

pmvki ≥ Pimin · za,i
k − 3 · (1 − z k )
a,i
(5)
pmvki ≤ Pimax · za,i
k − 3 · (1 − z k )
a,i
where Pimin and Pimax are the lower and upper bounds of the com-
fortable range for occupant i, which can be obtained by statistical
k is an integer
sampling of actual data with occupant’s feedback; za,i
k = 1 means that occupant i is present in the room at
variable. za,i
k = 0. Occupants may experience different thermal
k, otherwise, za,i
sensation in the same thermal environment, so their neutral feeling
and acceptable range of thermal comfort may correspond to differ-
(2)
ent ranges of the PMV index. In this paper this diversity in thermal
comfort is described using the above lower and upper bounds, i.e.,
these two values of any occupant may be different from those of
others. Therefore, in the optimization problem developed in this
paper, the constraints for the thermal comfort of occupants with
the elevated air speed consist of (2)–(5).
2.2. Model for energy dynamics of a room
The room model is formulated based on an office-room environ-
ment in Singapore for the experiment in this paper. The room has a
closed window, so the natural ventilation is not considered in this
paper. In the room, there are one ACMV system and I personal fans,
i.e., there are totally I occupants, and each occupant has a personal
fan respectively. We use a resistance-capacitance (RC) network-
based model developed in [23] to model the room dynamics. In
this model, indoor air temperature and wall surface temperature
are considered as two types of nodes in the network. For each node,
its temperature dynamics is formulated based on the heat exchange
with all neighboring nodes. The equations for the nodes of indoor
air and walls are shown below.
(3) Assume that there are totally S walls in the room, the tempera-
ture dynamics of the s-th (s = 1,2,. . .,S) wall is given by:
(4) 
k+1 k
Cws (tws − tws )=·[ (tjk − tws
k
)/Rws,j + s ˛s As qkws ] (6)
j ∈ Nws
where Cws , ˛s , and As are the heat capacity, absorption coefficient,
and area of the wall s, respectively; tws k is the surface temperature
of the wall s at k;  is the length of time in each stage; Nws is the set
of neighboring nodes to the node wall s; tjk is the temperature of
 Z. Xu et al. / Energy and Buildings 141 (2017) 308–320 311

the j-th neighboring node at k; Rws,j is the resistance between wall Furthermore, since we focus on the thermal comfort in the room,
s and its j-th neighboring node;  s is equal to 0 for internal walls the electricity consumption of the other parts of ACMV (such as
and 1 for external walls; and qkws is the solar radiation density on chiller, cooling tower, pumps, etc.) is estimated by the coefficient
wall s at k. of performance (COP) of the chiller. So we have:
The temperature dynamics of the indoor air is given by:
 qkfcu = eacm
k
v · cop
k
(11)
Ca (tak+1 − tak ) =  · [ (tjk − tak )/
j ∈ Na
k
where eacm v is the electricity consumption of the chiller at k, and
k
Ra,j + Gfcu k
cp (tfcu − tak ) + ˇwin Awin qksa + qkin ] (7) copk is COP of the chiller at k. COP is determined by the cooling
load of ACMV. It can be obtained by fitting the actual data of energy
where Ca is the heat capacity of the indoor air; tak is the indoor air consumption and cooling supplied [25]. In this paper, based on the
temperature at k; Na is the set of neighboring nodes to the node of measured data, a mapping from energy consumption to cooling
indoor air; Ra,j is the resistance between the node of indoor air and supplied is established based on (11) for different conditions of the
its j-th neighboring node; Gfcuk and t k are the outlet mass flow rate cooling load. This mapping is then piecewise linearized with high
fcu
and outlet temperature of the fan coil unit (FCU) at k; cp is the spe- accuracy that is shown in Section 5.
cific heat of the air; ˇwin is the transmissivity of glass of window; The electricity consumption of the lighting is determined by the
Awin is the area of the window; qksa is the solar radiation density radi- indoor illuminance and occupancy. When the room is occupied, the
ated to the room from the window at k; and qkin is the internal heat operation of the lighting is constrained by the requirement of the
generation at k such as heat gain from occupants, electrical appli- indoor illuminance:
ances, and furniture. The values of capacitance and resistance for 
each node can be identified by using the measured data of indoor air Idk + elight
k · Ilight ≥ Iload
temperature, wall surface temperature, and external and internal (12)
k
Qlight k
= elight · l
heat gain. The accuracy of the room model is validated in Section 5.
The indoor humidity is affected by humidity generated by occu-
pants, provided by the FCU, and contained in the indoor air [24]. So where Idk is the illuminance supplied by the daylight at k; elight
k and
the dynamics of the indoor humidity is given by: k
Qlight are the electricity consumption and heat generation of the
ma (hk+1 − hka ) =  · [Ok hg + Gfcu
k
(hkfcu − hka )] (8) lighting at k, respectively; Ilight is the illuminance supplied by the
a
lighting per kWh; Iload is the requirement of the indoor illuminance;
where ma is the mass of the indoor air; hka is the indoor humidity and l is the coefficient of heat generation per kWh of the lighting.
ratio at k; Ok is the number of occupants in the room at k; hg is Next, the relationship between the energy consumption of a per-
the humidity generation ratio per person; and hkfcu is the outlet air sonal fan and the air speed in the vicinity of occupant is developed.
humidity ratio of the FCU at k. In practice, fan speed control is typically set at various discrete lev-
The desired indoor thermal environment is maintained by the els, so the relationship between fan speed setting and actual air
ACMV and personal fans, and it is also affected by the heat gener- speed in the vicinity of occupant can be determined experimentally.
ation of lighting. The models of these appliances are shown in the In this way we establish a mapping from energy consumption to air
following. speed. Without loss of generality, assuming that there are totally N
The cooling supplied by the FCU equals to the enthalpy differ- levels of air speed in the vicinity of occupant that can be adjusted by
ence between the inlet and outlet air [24], it is given by: fan speed setting. So for the fan belonging to occupant i, we have:
⎧
qkfcu =  · Gfcu
k
[cp tak + hka (2500 + 1.84tak )] −  · Gfcu
k k
[cp tfcu ⎪ N
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ e k = k
xfan,i,n · efan,n
+hkfcu (2500 + 1.84tfcu
k
)] (9) ⎪
⎪
fan,i
⎪
⎪ n=1
⎪
⎨
where qkfcu is the cooling energy supplied by the FCU at k.
N
vk = xk · vfan,n , vki ≤ vmax (13)
Outlet mass flow rate of FCU is always designed as several ⎪
⎪
i fan,i,n i
⎪
⎪ n=1
discrete levels in practice [24]. So without loss of generality, we ⎪
⎪ 
⎪
⎪
N
assume that the outlet mass flow rate of the FCU has a total of V dis- ⎪
⎪ k
xfan,i,n =1
crete levels, and gv is introduced to indicate the v-th discrete value. ⎩
n=1
Based on the model developed in [24], the electricity consumption
of the fan in the FCU is given by:
k
⎧ where efan,i is the electricity consumption of the fan for occupant
⎪
⎪ V
i at k; vfan,n is the n-th (n = 1,2,. . .,N) air speed in the vicinity of
⎪
⎪ k =p
efcu rated ·  · xvk · (gv /Grated )
3
⎪
⎪ occupants; efan,n is the electricity consumption corresponding to
⎪
⎪ the n-th air speed in the vicinity of occupants; vmax
⎪
⎪
v=1
i
is the max-
⎨ V k
imal acceptable air speed of occupant i; and xfan,i,n is an integer
k =
Gfcu xvk · gv (10)
⎪
⎪
k
variable. xfan,i,n = 1 means that the air speed in the vicinity of occu-
⎪
⎪ v=1
⎪
⎪  pant i is equal to vfan,n at k, otherwise, xfan,i,nk = 0. Note that vfan,n ,
⎪
⎪
V
⎪
⎪ xvk ≤ 1 efan,n (n = 1,2,. . .,N), and vmax (i = 1,2,. . .,I) can be obtained experi-
⎩ i
v=1 mentally. For a specific air speed in the vicinity of occupants, the
corresponding cooling effect can be determined by (2) with indoor
k is the electricity consumption of the fan in the FCU at k;
where efcu air temperature and the corresponding electricity consumption can
prated and Grated are the rated power and rated outlet mass flow rate be determined by (13). Therefore, a mapping from energy con-
of the FCU, respectively; and xvk is an integer variable. xvk = 1 means sumption to cooling effect for all discrete levels of air speed is
that the outlet mass flow rate takes gv at k, otherwise, xvk = 0. established.
312 Z. Xu et al. / Energy and Buildings 141 (2017) 308–320

2.3. Objective function and analysis of cost saving potential Nevertheless, it is similar to the unit commitment problem in
achieved by extension of building DR capability power systems and is believed to be NP-hard [26]. On the one
hand, this problem is not separable due to that both the calcula-
The objective of the problem is to determine the electricity con- tions of the SET and PMV values couple the indoor air temperature
sumption of electrical appliance (such as ACMV, personal fans, and controlled by ACMV and the air speed controlled by fans. On the
lighting) over the scheduling horizon K in response to a specific other hand, as mentioned earlier, the calculation of the SET value
electricity price signal such that the overall energy cost is mini- relies on iterative numerical methods which may provide a com-
mized. So the objective function can be defined as: putational challenge to directly solving the problem. So in order to
overcome these computational challenges, an LR-based approach

K

I
shown in Fig. 2 is developed to obtain the near-optimal solution of
min c k · (efcu
k k
+ eacm k
v + elight +
k
efan,i ) (14)
the problem of (2)–(14).
k=1 i=1 According to LR technology [27], for the problem of (2)–(14),
where ck is the electricity price at k. The objective function should two inequalities in (5) are relaxed into the objective function by
be subject to the constraints consisting of (2)–(13). The decision and introducing Lagrangian multipliers. The corresponding LR function
state variables in this optimization problem are shown as below. is thus given by:
Decision variables at k:
T
k
[Gfcu , xvk , tfcu
k
, hkfcu , elight
k k
, efan,i k
, xfan,i,n ] , ∀i = 1, 2, ..., I, v = 1, 2, ..., V, n = 1, 2, ..., N.

K 
I
State variables at k: L(␭, ␮, U, G) = k + ek
c k · (efcu k k
acmv + elight + efan,i )
T
[tak , trk , tws
k
, vki , hka ] , ∀i = 1, 2, ..., I, s = 1, 2, ..., S. k=1 i=1

I 
K
The weather data (such as outdoor temperature and solar + i,k (−Pimax · za,i
k − 3 · (1 − z k ) + pmvk )
a,i i
(15)
radiation) and the room occupancy are assumed to be perfectly i=1 k=1
forecasted beforehand, since this paper focuses on evaluating the 
I 
K
performance of the coordination of ACMV and fans. In the following, + i,k (Pimin · za,i
k − 3 · (1 − z k ) − pmvk )
a,i i
as compared to using ACMV alone, the energy cost saving potential i=1 k=1
and the extension of building DR capability achieved by coordinat-
ing ACMV and fans are discussed.
Since the problem of using ACMV alone is equivalent to the prob-
lem of coordinating ACMV and fans when all the fans are shut down, k , xk , t k , hk }
where U = {Gfcu k
and G = {efan,i k
, xfan,i,n } are the
v fcu fcu 4×K 2I×K
it is straightforward that the feasible region of the former case is
matrices representing the decision variables of ACMV and fans,
a subset of that of the latter one. So the optimal energy cost of
respectively; and ␭={i,k }I x K and ␮={i,k }I x K are the matrices of
coordinating ACMV and fans is not more than that of using ACMV
the Lagrangian multipliers for relaxing the two inequalities in (5),
alone.
respectively. Based on the above LR function, the LR dual problem
As shown in (3), to achieve the same comfort level, the indoor
˚(·) and its optimal solution are thus given by:
air temperature can be increased with the cooling effect provided
by fans. Since the power of fans is relatively low, existing results
based on experiments in [12–14] stated that the energy demand of
cooperation of ACMV and fans may be less than that of using ACMV ∗
˚∗ = ˚∗ (␭ , ␮∗ ) = max ˚(␭, ␮) = max {minL(␭, ␮, U, G)} (16)
alone to achieve the same comfort level. Based on this statement ␭,␮≥0 U,G
(referred as Statement 1), the building DR capability enhanced by
coordinating ACMV and fans is discussed.
Assume that the required PMV range is [pmvmin , pmvmax ]. First,
ACMV is used alone. Since the PMV value is a monotonically where superscript * indicates the optimal solution of the corre-
increasing function of the indoor air temperature and the energy sponding variable. In (16), the minimization of the LR function
consumption of ACMV is also a monotonically increasing function with the Lagrangian multipliers, minL(␭, ␮, U, G), is subject to the
U,G
of the cooling supplied by ACMV, the allowable range of the energy constraints consisting of (2) and (6)–(13).
consumption of ACMV without sacrificing the thermal comfort can Based on duality theory [28], the optimal solution of (16) is also
be calculated with the upper and lower bounds of the required the optimal solution of the problem of (2)–(14). It means that the
PMV range, which is denoted by [e1 , e2 ]. Oppositely, ACMV and fans optimal solution of the problem of (2)–(14) can be obtained by get-
are jointly used. The allowable range of the energy consumption of ting the optimal Lagrangian multipliers through solving the LR dual
ACMV and fans can also be calculated with the required PMV range, problem in (16). The following algorithm is developed to solve the
which is denoted by [e3 , e2 ]. Based on Statement 1, we have e3 < e1 . It LR dual problem, and we also theoretically prove that the optimal
indicates that without sacrificing the thermal comfort, coordinat- solution can be found using this algorithm. However, we notice
ing ACMV and fans can extend the lower bound of the allowable that the optimal Lagrangian multipliers can hardly be obtained in
range of the energy consumption from e1 to e3 , so that the flexi- practice [27,29]. So in this paper, the near-optimal solution of the
bility in building demand profiles, i.e., the building DR capability, LR dual problem is obtained using the algorithm with the given
may be enhanced. In Section 5, this extension of the building DR accuracy requirement, and then a feasible solution of the prob-
capability will be demonstrated in more detail based on numerical lem of (2)–(14) is constructed based on this near-optimal solution.
results. The dual gap between these two solutions is calculated to evalu-
ate the performance of the feasible solution, since the objective
3. Solution methodology value of the LR dual problem is the lower bound of that of the
original problem. Moreover, through the proposed algorithm, the
The optimization problem of coordinating ACMV and fans con- calculation of the SET value can be separated from the optimization
sists of (2)–(14), which is a mixed integer programming problem. procedure.
 Z. Xu et al. / Energy and Buildings 141 (2017) 308–320 313

Fig. 2. The framework of the proposed method for the coordination of ACMV and fans.

Algorithm: to the presence of the non-analytical SET model in (2). Eq. (19)
Step 1: Initialization. Set l = 0 and G0 = 0 and initialize ␭0 and ␮0 . shows that the Lagrangian multipliers should be not less than 0,
0
Solve minL(␭ , ␮0 , U, G0 ) to obtain U0 . Note that l is the
U
since the Lagrangian multipliers correspond to the inequalities.
iteration index, and superscript 0 indicates the initial value. 2. Based on steps 3(a)-3(c), the correlation of ACMV and fans is
Step 2: Update the Lagrangian multipliers. decoupled and a solution which satisfies (20) can be obtained
Gradient directions of the Lagrangian multipliers are
by individually solving the subproblem of ACMV and the sub-
 l by: max k
obtained
problem of personal fans. First, in step 3(a), the variables
g = −Pi · za,i − 3 · (1 − za,i k
) + pmvki
i,k
(17) corresponding to all fans are fixed with their values in the last
gl
= Pimin · za,i k
− 3 · (1 − za,i k
) − pmvki
i,k iteration. Then the subproblem of ACMV is solved with the
where gl and g l
are the gradient directions of the
i,k i,k multipliers, which only depends on the decision variables of
Lagrangian multipliers in the matrices of ␭ and ␮,
ACMV. After performing step 3(a), the indoor air temperature
respectively.
Then choose the step size sl , which satisfies: is updated. Second, in step 3(b), the cooling effect provided by
l
0 < s < (˚ − L )/g  ∗ l l 2
(18) the fan for all levels of air speed in the vicinity of occupants is
where gl is a vector that consists of the gradient directions recalculated based on (2) with the new trajectory of the indoor
of all multipliers in the matrices of ␭ and ␮, i.e., gl = air temperature over all stages. Note that this calculation is per-
(gl , · · ·, gl , · · ·, gl , · · ·, gl , g l
1,1
, · · ·, g
l
1,K
, · · ·, g
l
I,1
, · · ·, g
l
I,K
). formed based on the codes in [18]. Therefore, a mapping from the
1,1 1,K I,1 I,K

 l+1
Update the Lagrangian multipliers according to: new cooling effect to energy consumption of fans for every air
i,k = max{0, i,k + s g } l l l
i,k
(19)
speed can be established. Finally, in step 3(c), by fixing the solu-
l+1i,k
= max{0, li,k + sl g l
} tion obtained from step 3(a) and using the new mapping from
i,k
Step 3: Update the solutions of the sub-problems. Find Ul +1 and cooling effect to energy consumption of fans, the subproblem of
Gl +1 , which satisfy: fans is solved with the multipliers, which only depends on the
l+1 l+1
Ll+1 = L(␭ , ␮l+1 , Ul+1 , Gl+1 ) < L(␭ , ␮l+1 , Ul , Gl ) (20)
decision variables of fans. Note that based on (13)–(14), the sub-
The solutions can be found according to:
Step 3(a): Fix G as Gl , and obtain Ul +1 by solving the problem of fans is separable with respect to each fan, since the
subproblem of ACMV with ␭l +1 and ␮l +1 . Note that the fan control for each occupant is independent of that for others.
l+1
subproblem of ACMV is defined as: minL(␭ , ␮l+1 , U, Gl ). So the subproblem of each fan can be solved individually, and
U
Step 3(b): With Ul +1 , solve (2) by the codes in [18] to the computational time per iteration of the proposed algorithm
obtain the cooling effect provided by the fan for all levels is independent of the number of the fans.
of air speed in the vicinity of occupants over all stages. 3. As mentioned above, due to the mapping from cooling effect
Step 3(c): Fix U as Ul +1 , and obtain Gl +1 by solving the to energy consumption of fans for all levels of air speed estab-
subproblem of fans with ␭l +1 , ␮l +1 , and the cooling effects
obtained from step 3(b). Note that the subproblem of fans
lished in step 3(b), the calculation of (2) is separated from the
l+1
is defined as: minL(␭ , ␮l+1 , Ul+1 , G). optimization procedure and we do not have to solve the sub-
G
problem of fans using the non-analytical SET model. Moreover,
Step 4: Check the stop criterion. If the following criterion is met,
go to step 5; otherwise, go to step 2. the circulation of steps 3(a)–3(c) can be performed repeatedly
l+1 l
␭ − ␭  + ␮l+1 − ␮l  < ε, where ε is the accuracy to improve the solution as needed. But a tradeoff between the
requirement given beforehand. improvement and the computational effort should be made. In
Step 5: Construct the feasible solution of the problem of (2)–(14) the testing shown in Section 5, this circulation will be performed
based on the near-optimal solution of the LR dual problem
obtained by steps 1–4, and then calculate the dual gap
once in each iterative loop.
between these two solutions to evaluate the performance
of the feasible solution.
Remarks: Based on the following three theorems, the convergence of the
proposed algorithm is proved.

1. ˚* in (18) can be estimated by the method in [27]. Perform- Theorem 1. Based on the proposed algorithm, the following state-
ing step 3 may not guarantee that the optimal solution of ments are satisfied:
minL(␭, ␮, U, G) is obtained with the given ␭ and ␮ in each itera-
U,G
tive loop. So generally, gl is not the subgradient, but the so-called 1. Ll < ˚*, l = 1, 2, · · ·;
surrogate subgradient. Although how to use surrogate subgra- 2. Step size described in (18) always exists
dient to update Lagrangian multipliers was discussed in [27]
for a mixed integer linear programming problem, the algorithm
developed in [27] cannot be directly applied to our problem due Proof. The details of the proof are given in Appendix A. 䊏
314 Z. Xu et al. / Energy and Buildings 141 (2017) 308–320
Fig. 3. Structure and configuration of the room.
Table 1
Parameters of the fan for five representative fan speed settings.
Fan speed setting 1 2 3 4
Air speed (m/s) 0.38 0.76 1.06 1.28
Power (W) 3.2 4.2 5.0 5.8
Theorem 2. Based on the proposed algorithm, the surrogate subgra-
dient direction is in acute angle with the direction toward the optimal
multipliers, i.e.,
∗ l T T experiment.
(␭ − ␭ ) gl + (␮∗ − ␮l ) gl > 0
Proof. By Theorem 1 and (15)–(17), Theorem 2 can be proved in
a similar way as shown in [27]. 䊏
Theorem 3. Based on the algorithm, the multipliers move closer to
the optimal ones step by step, i.e.,
∗ l+1 2 2 ∗ l 2 2
␭ − ␭  + ␮∗ − ␮l+1  < ␭ − ␭  + ␮∗ − ␮l 
Proof. By Theorem 2 and (19), Theorem 3 can be proved in a
similar way as shown in [29]. 䊏
4. Set-up of the experiment
An experiment was conducted in an office-room environment in
Singapore to assess the performance of the coordination of ACMV
and fans. The dimensions of the room are 6.7 m × 4 m × 2.85 m (vol-
ume = 76.38 m3 ). One set of ceiling mounted FCU is used to control
the indoor thermal environment. The room structure with a closed-
french casement and a wooden door is shown in Fig. 3. Four human
subjects were invited to participate in this experiment. For each
subject, personally controlled air movement is provided by using a
three-phase brushless direct current fan (Model FSAW98RI-A, Air-
mate, China). The fan is placed at a distance of about 1.2 m away
from the subject. The axis of the fan blade is at 1.1 m height that is
equal to the breathing zone of a seated person according to thermal
comfort standards, since in warm environments, the head is one of
the dominant body parts affecting overall comfort [34,35]. For fan
speed setting of 1–32, each fan generates air speeds in the vicin-
ity of human subjects from 0.15 m/s to 3 m/s and the corresponding
power is only from 3 W to 20 W. According to the acceptable ranges
of air speed for all the subjects, we chose 5 representatives of fan
speed settings in this experiment, the corresponding air speed in
the vicinity of the subjects and power are shown in Table 1.
The temperature, relative humidity and speed of the indoor
air and outlet of the FCU are measured and recorded by
Table 2
Comfortable range of PMV index and acceptable range of air speed.
Subject 1 Subject 2 Subject 3 Subject 4
Comfortable PMV range [−0.5, 0.5] [0.15, 0.7] [−0.3, 0.7] [−0.8, 0.2]
Range of neutral thermal [−0.2, 0.35] [0.3, 0.5] [0.15, 0.5] [−0.58, 0]
sensation
Acceptable air speed (m/s) ≤1.8 ≤0.5 ≤1.1 ≤1.2
ThermCondSys5500 (Sensor-Electronic, Poland). In this system,
omnidirectional air speed sensors are used to measure the air
speed at an accuracy of ± 0.02 m/s in a range of 0.05–5 m/s; Pt-
100 sensors are used to measure the temperature at an accuracy
of ± 0.1 ◦ C in a range of −10 ◦ C to 50 ◦ C; and capacitive polimer-
based probes are used to measure the relative humidity at an
accuracy of ± 2% in a range of 10% to 90%. The surface temperature
of all the walls are measured by thermocouples (HIOKI type K*1 ,
Japan) and recorded by a data logger (HIOKI LR8410-20, Japan) with
an accuracy of ± 0.6 ◦ C in a range of −200 ◦ C to 500 ◦ C. The power
5
of ACMV system is measured and recorded by a power quality ana-
1.65 lyzer (Fluke 43B, USA). Current probe i400s is used to measure
8.4 the current at an accuracy of 2% of readings + 0.04 A in a range of
5–400 A, and the voltage is measured by a probe at an accuracy of 1%
of readings + 2 pixels in a range of 0.005–500 V. The sampling inter-
val of all of the measurements stated above is one minute, and we
recorded the data every ten minutes with their average values over
this period. All test instruments were calibrated before starting the
This experiment includes four steps. First, we identify and ver-
ify the RC network-based room model shown in (6)–(7) by using a
set of three-day measured data, including indoor air temperature,
surface temperature of all the walls, cooling supplied by ACMV,
solar radiation, and outdoor temperature. Since the presence of
occupants in the room is very random, as similar to [23], no sub-
jects were present in the room during the measurement procedure
for the identification and validation of the RC network-based room
model to minimize the disturbance effect of heat gain from occu-
pants. The energy consumption and thermal generation of lightings
were considered in this process. The identification and validation
of the parameters of the room model are shown in Section 5.1. Sec-
ond, we establish a mapping from energy consumption to cooling
supplied of ACMV system based on (11) with the measured data
of different conditions of the cooling load. The accuracy analysis of
the ACMV model and its piecewise linear approximation are also
shown in Section 5.1.
Third, we establish the comfortable range of PMV index and
acceptable range of air speed for four human subjects through their
feedback. With jointly adjusting the air temperature and air speed,
the human subjects reported their thermal comfort, thermal sen-
sation, and acceptance of air movement every thirty minutes for
each thermal environment. Based on their feedback and the cor-
responding indoor thermal environment, the comfortable range of
the PMV value for each subject is calculated by (2)–(4). For calcu-
lation of the PMV value, the metabolic rate of occupant is set as 1.2
met referring to typical office work and the clothing insulation is
0.65 clo according to the calculation shown in [18]. Furthermore,
the measured relative humidity was within the range of [52%, 61%]
during the whole experiment. So we use relative humidity 55% to
calculate the PMV values since the impact of this variance in rela-
tive humidity on the thermal comfort is small and may usually be
disregarded [30]. By increasing the fan speed setting step by step,
the maximal acceptable air speed of each subject is obtained. The
comfortable range, the range of neutral thermal sensation, and the
maximal acceptable air speed of all human subjects are shown in
Table 2.
 Z. Xu et al. / Energy and Buildings 141 (2017) 308–320 315

Table 3
Parameter identification of the room model.

Parameter Value (J/K) Parameter Value (m·K/W)

Cwall1 3.87 × 106 Rw 1.43

Cwall2 6.24 × 106 Rwin 0.13
Cwall3 3.63 × 106 Rin 0.09
Ca 3.74 × 105 Rout 2.91

Note that Rw , Rwin , Rin , and Rout are the resistance-values of wall, window, inside air
film and outside air film, respectively.

5. Experimental and simulation results

Fig. 4. Room occupancy. Note that the value for the presence of each human subject 5.1. Validation of the room model and the ACMV model
is denoted by the index of the subject, and “0” indicates that this subject is absent.

We used a set of two-day (Nov. 11–12, 2016) measured data of

indoor air temperature, surface temperature of all the walls, cool-
ing supplied by ACMV, solar radiation, and outdoor temperature to
identify the optimal parameters by minimizing the error between
the measured temperature and the simulated temperature of the
room model based on (6)–(7). The typical values of the parameters
in (6)–(7) which are obtained from ASHRAE handbook [31] are used
as the initial guesses in this optimization program. This parameter
identification problem is solved by the fmincon function in MAT-
LAB. Note that in this model the floor and the roof are considered
isolated from rooms on adjacent floors, since we cannot measure
the temperature of their external surface.
The results of the model identification are shown in Fig. 6, and
the optimal parameters are shown in Table 3. Then we used the
Fig. 5. Three types of price schemes.
measured data (Nov. 13, 2016) of the same room to validate the
parameters. The results are shown in Fig. 7. The root-mean-square
error (RMSE) of 0.156 between the measured air temperature and
the simulated temperature is obtained and is accurate enough
for our application. In the following, the simulation results are
Based on the above three steps and the room occupancy shown obtained based on this room model.
in Fig. 4, all inputs of the optimization problem developed in this
paper are obtained. Therefore, an operational strategy of the coor-
dination of ACMV and fans can be obtained by solving the problem
of (2)–(14) with these inputs. In order to assess the performance
of the coordination of ACMV and fans, the problem of using ACMV
alone is also solved with the same inputs to obtain a solution as
a comparison. By comparing the difference of these two solutions,
the performance of the coordination of ACMV and fans is evaluated
in two-folds. First, by executing these two solutions, the compari-
son of thermal comfort of the human subjects is attained by their
feedback. Second, the energy consumption and cost of these two
solutions are compared based on the simulation results due to the
following two reasons. On the one hand, outdoor environment has
significant impact on the energy consumption of ACMV system.
Since we cannot perform these two solutions with the same sub- Fig. 6. Simulated temperature vs. measured temperature of the room for parameter
jects at the same time, the comparison based on the measured identification (Nov. 11–12, 2016).

energy consumption may not be fair. On the other hand, as shown

in Section 5.1, the accuracy of the ACMV model obtained using the
measured data is very high, so the comparison of the energy cost
and consumption based on the simulation results is proper.
Based on this experiment, the problem is performed with three
types of electricity price schemes that are shown in Fig. 5. Price
scheme 1 is the commercial TOU price, in which the difference
between the peak and lower prices is big. Price scheme 2 is the res-
idential TOU price, in which the difference is small. Price scheme
3 is a flat price. In the following, based on the measured and sim-
ulation results obtained with price scheme 1, the performance of
coordinating ACMV and fans is demonstrated in Section 5.2. Based
on the simulation results obtained with the three price schemes,
the building DR capability enhanced by coordination of ACMV and Fig. 7. Simulated temperature vs. measured temperature of the room for parameter
fans is demonstrated in Section 5.3. validation (Nov. 13, 2016).
316 Z. Xu et al. / Energy and Buildings 141 (2017) 308–320

Table 4
Comparison of the solutions with and without fans.

Solution of the coordination of ACMV and fans

Cost of feasible solution (S$) 16.23

Dual cost (S$) 15.79
Dual gap 2.7%

Solution of using ACMV alone

Energy cost (S$) 29.74

Fig. 8. ACMV model obtained based on the measured data.(For interpretation of

the references to color in the text, the reader is referred to the web version of this
article.)

Next, the results of ACMV model are presented. The rated cool-
ing capacity of the ACMV is 6 kW. By adjusting the set-point of
indoor air temperature, the energy consumption of the ACMV in
different conditions of cooling supplied (from 0.06 kW to 5.39 kW)
was measured. Based on the measured data, a mapping from the
energy consumption to cooling supplied is established, which is
shown in Fig. 8. We tried to use quadratic and cubic polynomial Fig. 9. PMV values of each human subject.
functions to fit the mapping based on the measured data. The good-
ness of fit of these two functions is similar: the R-square values of
these two functions are 0.9859 and 0.9894, respectively, and their
RMSEs are 0.241 and 0.185, respectively. However, by using the
quadratic function, the cooling supplied decreases with the rise of
the energy consumption when the electricity power is less than
0.15 kW. Obviously, it does not work this way in reality. So the cubic
function which is shown in Fig. 8 (in red line) is used instead. Fur-
thermore, in order to make a tradeoff between the model accuracy
and computational effort, we use a piecewise linear function to
approximate this cubic polynomial function, which does not intro-
duce significant error (as shown in Fig. 8) but significantly reduces
the computational time. The maximal relative error of this approxi-
mation is less than 4%. So in the following, the simulation results are
Fig. 10. Air speed in the vicinity of each human subject.
calculated based on the following piecewise linear function instead
of (11).
⎧ k k k
The PMV values, the air speed for each human subject, the
⎪ qfcu = 1.414eacmv , ifeacmv ∈ [0, 0.4]
⎪
⎪ energy consumption per half hour of ACMV and fans, and the indoor
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ qk = 3.028eacm
k k
v − 0.645, ifeacmv ∈ [0.4, 0.6]
air temperature of this feasible solution are shown in Figs. 9–12,
⎨ fcu respectively. In Fig. 9, it is found that the diverse thermal require-
qk = 5.283eacm
k k
v − 1.998, ifeacmv ∈ [0.6, 0.8] ments of the four subjects are satisfied by coordinating ACMV and
⎪
⎪
fcu
⎪
⎪ k = 8.425ek k fans when they are present. The PMV values of the human subjects
⎪ q acmv − 4.512, ifeacmv ∈ [0.8, 1.0]
⎪
⎪
fcu may not be at the upper bound of their comfortable ranges due
⎩ k k k
qfcu = 12.455eacmv − 8.542, ifeacmv ∈ [1.0, 1.2] to the following two reasons. First, the PMV values of all subjects
should be jointly determined by the diverse thermal requirements
and the shared indoor air temperature. Second, the fan speed
5.2. Performance analysis of coordinating ACMV and fans setting in this case is discrete. The improvement of the thermal
comfort achieved by coordinating ACMV and fans will be discussed
Based on the thermal requirements of four human subjects, based on feedback of the subjects later. In Fig. 10, it is found that
room model, ACMV model and occupancy mentioned above, an the fans are started up (or shut down) when the corresponding
operational strategy of coordinating ACMV and personal fans is subjects are present (or absent) in the room. The air speeds of sub-
obtained by solving the problem with price scheme 1 over the jects 1–3 are at the low level, since their thermal comfort can be
scheduling horizon (K = 48, i.e., 24 h are divided into 48 stages). This achieved by these lower air speeds with the shared indoor air tem-
calculation is performed using the CPLEX solver with the relative perature. As shown in Table 2, subject 4 prefers a relatively cool
error gap being 0.01. The calculation of the proposed algorithm environment so that the cooling load is high when subject 4 is
converges after the 68-th iteration. It took about 640 s to obtain a present. Since the cooling load of ACMV can be reduced by using
feasible solution. The results of the feasible solution, the dual solu- fans to achieve the same thermal comfort level, in order to save
tion and the dual gap between these two solutions are shown in the energy cost as much as possible, the air speed for subject 4 is at
upper part of Table 4. It is found that the absolute error between the high level in most of the time when subject 4 is present. In
the feasible and dual solutions is relatively small. It means that the Fig. 11, it is found that there is a huge precooling during 0:00–6:00
feasible solution is good. The dual gap is relatively larger, due to the to shift the energy demand during the peak-price periods, so that
smaller scale of the problem. the overall cost can be reduced. During the occupied time, the
 Z. Xu et al. / Energy and Buildings 141 (2017) 308–320
Fig. 11. Energy consumption per half hour of ACMV and fans. Note that the energy
consumption in the case of using ACMV alone only includes that of ACMV.
Fig. 12. Indoor air temperature over the scheduling horizon.
energy consumption is relatively small due to the load shifting and
the cooling load reduction achieved by using the fans. The indoor
air temperature is shown in Fig. 12. It is found that the indoor air
temperature is always at the high level due to the cooling effect
provided by the fans. It is also found that there are several charging-
discharging processes of cooling energy in the room during the
occupied time in response to the price signal. For example, dur-
ing 16:00–18:00, the indoor air temperature is adjusted to be at a
low level to store the cooling energy, since the price is lower during
this period. Then the cooling energy stored is discharged to reduce
the energy consumption in the future periods (as shown in Fig. 11).
The similar charging process also happens during 8:00–9:00. This
thermal storing-dispensing of cooling energy in response to price
signal which does not sacrifice the thermal comfort of occupants
is achieved by jointly adjusting the air temperature and air speed
(for example, both the air temperature and air speed are at the low
level to store the cooling energy during the lower-price periods, and
both of them are at the high level to reduce the energy consumption
during the peak-price periods).
In order to analyze the energy cost saving achieved by the coor-
dination of ACMV and fans, the problem of using ACMV alone is
also solved by using the same inputs and the results are shown in
the lower part of Table 4. The energy consumption and the indoor
air temperature of this solution are shown in Figs. 11–12, respec-
tively. Compared to the case of using ACMV alone, more than 45%
of the energy cost can be saved by coordinating ACMV and fans
due to the following two reasons. First, as shown in Fig. 12, the air
temperature in the case of using ACMV alone is always lower than
that in the case of coordinating ACMV and fans during the occupied
time. It indicates that the cooling load in the case of coordinating
ACMV and fans is lower, and the energy saving is thus achieved.
Second, as shown in Fig. 11, by coordinating ACMV and fans, there
is more capability of load shifting in response to the price signal, so
more energy consumption is reduced during the peak-price peri-
ods. Therefore, coordinating ACMV and fans can not only achieve
317
Fig. 13. Feedback of the thermal comfort of the subjects based on the two solutions.
cooling load reduction, but also provide more DR capability. This
DR capability will be discussed in more detail with the three types
of price schemes in Section 5.3.
Furthermore, the COPs of the chiller of these two solutions are
also compared. In the case of using ACMV alone, the COP is at the
high level (3.7–4.6) during most of the time since the required cool-
ing load is high. However, by coordinating ACMV and fans, the COP
is at the high level during 0:00–6:00 for precooling but is at the low
level (1.7–2.8) during most of the daytime since the efficiency of the
chiller is decreased with the partial cooling load. It reveals that if
the coordination of ACMV and fans is considered in the design of
ACMV system, i.e., we replace or reconfigure a proper ACMV system
with higher performance for the coordination of ACMV and fans, the
energy consumption and cost savings can be further improved and
the investment cost of ACMV system may also be reduced due to
the reduction of cooling capacity.
Next, we will discuss the thermal comfort of human subjects
with the solutions obtained in the cases of using ACMV alone and
coordinating ACMV and fans. The indoor air temperature and air
speed were controlled according to these two solutions in two days,
respectively. We recorded the feedback from four subjects every
30 min during 10:00–18:00. The results are shown in Fig. 13. In
both the cases, all the subjects feel comfortable but have differ-
ent thermal sensation. In the case of using ACMV alone, subjects
2–4 always feel slightly cool or warm but they do not feel neu-
tral. This is because the temperature regulation is the single way
to control the thermal environment so that the indoor air temper-
ature has to be controlled in a narrow range to make all subjects
comfortable. Subject 1 always feels neutral since his neutral ther-
mal sensation is just within this narrow range. However, in the
case of coordinating ACMV and fans, the thermal sensation of the
subjects is changed by the joint adjustment of air temperature and
air speed that make most of the subjects feel neutral in most of
the testing periods. Since the solution is obtained to minimize the
overall energy cost while satisfying the thermal comfortable ranges
of the subjects, subject 1 may not always feel neutral. In practice,
subject 1 can feel neutral by increasing the air speed. This does not
cause significant increase of energy consumption due to the low
power of the fan. In this case, when we set the air speed for subject
1 as 0.76 m/s during 11:30–17:00, subject 1 can always feel neu-
tral and the energy consumption increases by 0.01 kWh. Therefore,
318 Z. Xu et al. / Energy and Buildings 141 (2017) 308–320

Table 5 The peak load, the average load, and the load factor of the power
Comparison of the solutions with the three price schemes.
grid with these three schemes are also shown in Table 5. Note that
Price scheme 1 load factor is defined as the ratio of the average load to the peak
load over the scheduling horizon. The high load factor indicates that
With fans Without fans
the generation of the power grid is efficiently used. It is found that
Energy cost (S$) 16.23 29.74
compared to using ACMV alone, the peak load can be reduced by
Energy consumption (kWh) 18.40 22.85
Peak load (kW) 1.31 2.06 coordinating ACMV and fans in all the three cases. In the case of
Average load (kW) 0.77 0.95 price scheme 1, as mentioned before, there is significant load shift-
Load factor 0.58 0.46 ing so that the difference in the load over all stages is reduced. So
the load factor obtained by the coordination of ACMV and fans is
Price scheme 2
improved greatly. In the case of price scheme 2, although the peak
With fans Without fans load is reduced, the load factor is not improved due to the limited
Energy cost (S$) 10.98 18.96 capability to achieve load shifting in a cost-effective way with this
Energy consumption (kWh) 14.91 24.65 price scheme. In the case of price scheme 3, the price scheme is flat,
Peak load (kW) 1.37 2.22 so the problem is equivalent to minimizing the energy consump-
Average load (kW) 0.62 1.03 tion. Although both the peak load and average load can be reduced
Load factor 0.45 0.46
by cooling load reduction through using the fans, the load factor
Price scheme 3
obtained by coordinating ACMV and fans is decreased as compared
to that obtained by using ACMV alone. It means that outright energy
With fans Without fans saving may be helpless to improve the energy efficiency of the
Energy cost (S$) 9.93 16.54 power grid. Therefore, coordinating ACMV and fans can enhance
Energy consumption (kWh) 14.76 24.65 the building DR capability and thus contribute to the more effi-
Peak load (kW) 1.49 2.22
cient operation of the power grid in response to a proper price
Average load (kW) 0.62 1.03
Load factor 0.42 0.46 signal.
Note that the energy consumption in the case of coordinating ACMV and fans is the
summation of that of ACMV, lighting, and fans. The energy consumption in the case
of using ACMV alone is the summation of that of ACMV and lighting.

coordinating ACMV and fans can improve the customized thermal
satisfaction of occupants. Furthermore, as discussed before, ther-
mal storing-dispensing of cooling energy in response to the price
signal caused by coordinating ACMV and fans can provide variation
in the thermal environment such as storing cooling energy by both
low temperature and speed and reducing cooling load by both high
temperature and speed. This variation in thermal environment may
be welcome to occupants as shown in [32] and can further improve
the thermal satisfaction of occupants.
5.3. Benefits to both power grid and buildings
Building DR capability enhanced by the coordination of ACMV
and fans is analyzed in this subsection. With the price schemes
1–3, the problem of coordinating ACMV and fans and the problem
of using ACMV alone are solved, respectively. The results are shown
in Table 5.
In Table 5, it is found that compared to using ACMV alone, 45.4%,
42.1% and 40.0% of the energy cost can be saved by the coordination
of ACMV and fans with these three schemes, respectively. Since the
energy cost saving increases along with the rise of the difference
between the peak and lower prices, it indicates that coordinat-
ing ACMV and fans provides more capability in response to the
price signals so that it can fully utilize the variance of price sig-
nal to reduce the energy cost. The energy savings with the three
schemes are 19.5%, 39.5%, 40.0%, respectively. Through the com-
parison between the energy cost saving and energy saving, it is
found that with price scheme 1, the major cost saving is achieved
by load shifting in response to the price signal. But the major cost
savings with other two price schemes are both achieved by cooling
load reduction through using the fans. Note that the energy con-
sumptions of using ACMV alone obtained with the price schemes 2
and 3 are the same, which means that using ACMV alone lacks the
ability to respond to the difference between the two price schemes.
It also shows that the building DR capability can be enhanced by
coordinating ACMV and fans.
6. Discussion
In this paper, we explore the fact that the building DR capa-
bility could be enhanced by coordinating ACMV and fans so that
the energy cost can be reduced as compared to using ACMV alone.
Most of the existing works on cooperation of ACMV and fans, such
as [12–16], focused on the outright energy saving achieved by joint
operation of ACMV and fans. However, the building thermal stor-
age capacity enhanced by cooling fans is rarely considered in these
works. We develop an LR-based approach in this paper to optimally
coordinate the joint operation of ACMV and fans in response to the
electricity price signals. The results show that the building thermal
storage capacity can be significantly improved and fully utilized
by the coordination of ACMV and fans that leads to more efficient
operation of both the buildings and the power grid without sac-
rificing the thermal comfort of occupant. Therefore, we hope this
work brings insight and extension to joint utilization of the ACMV
and fans in hot-humid environment.
There are some limitations of this study. First, the models of
room energy dynamics and ACMV are obtained based on the sim-
plified model with the measured data. The accuracy of the models
is affected by the training data and its availability. Second, the
thermal requirements of occupants are obtained by their feedback,
which are considered as an invariant input for the optimization. So
an interesting future work is to develop an on-line optimization
method involving the real-time feedback of occupants to further
improve the thermal comfort. Third, since we focus on the per-
sonal thermal comfort, we conducted the small-scale experiment
with four human subjects to demonstrate the performance of the
proposed method as a proof of concept. It is worthwhile and inter-
esting to evaluate the performance of the proposed method in a
large-scale filed test with many occupants in the future work.
Furthermore, from the point of the view of the power grid, an
interesting future work is to apply the coordination of ACMV and
fans to providing ancillary service, such as voltage control, spinning
reserve and frequency regulation, with considering the different
response timescales of ACMV and fans.
 Z. Xu et al. / Energy and Buildings 141 (2017) 308–320 319

⎧
7. Conclusions ⎨ sl (gl )2 ifl+1 > 0
i,k i,k
(l+1 − li,k )g
l
= (A.4)
Cooling accounts for a significant part of energy consumption
i,k i,k
⎩ −l g l ≤ sl (g l )2 ifl+1 = 0
i,k i,k i,k i,k
in hot-humid environment such as in tropics. Coordinating ACMV
and fans provides a possible way to save energy cost while sat- Substituting (A.3) and (A.4) to (A.2), and based on (18) for iter-
isfying thermal comfort of occupants. Due to the combined effect ation l, we have:
of air temperature and speed on thermal comfort, the strategies
of ACMV and fans need to be jointly determined. An optimization 
I

K
2

I

K
2 2
Ll+1 < sl (gl ) + sl (g
l
) + Ll = sl gl 
problem of coordinating ACMV and fans is formulated to minimize i,k i,k

the energy cost in response to an electricity price signal. By estab- i=1 k=1 i=1 k=1

lishing a mapping from energy consumption to cooling effect for l ∗ l l ∗

+L < ˚ − L + L = ˚ (A.5)
all fan speed settings, the calculation of the cooling effect based
on a non-analytical model is separated from the optimization pro-
cedure. The problem can thus be solved in a decomposition and Eq. (A.5) shows that the statement holds for iteration l + 1. There-
coordination manner by relaxing the coupled constraints with LR fore, theorem 1 holds. 䊏
technology. Both experimental and simulation results show that by
enhancing the building DR capability, coordination of ACMV and References
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