Journal of Cleaner Production 218 (2019) 315e327

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Journal of Cleaner Production

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

Model predictive control of commercial buildings in demand response

programs in the presence of thermal storage
Yan Cao a, *, Jiang Du a, Ehsan Soleymanzadeh b
a
School of Mechatronic Engineering and Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Non-Traditional Machining, Xi'an Technological University, Xi'an, 710021, China
b
Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

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

Article history: The flexibility of buildings in Building-to-Grid (B2G) systems has led to the participation of buildings as
Received 28 July 2018 one of the largest energy consumers in energy management and moving towards clean, reliable and
Received in revised form sustainable energy systems. The development of appropriate frameworks for B2G requires appropriate
30 December 2018
control strategies for the active participation of buildings in these services. These frameworks require the
Accepted 23 January 2019
Available online 31 January 2019
demand side management (DSM) and participation in demand response (DR) programs that can increase
the flexibility of the building, reduce operating costs, and reduce the need for capacity development in
energy networks. A significant part of the energy cost of commercial buildings is related to the demand
Keywords:
Demand-side management
charge. As a result, commercial buildings to reduce this cost should reduce the peak demand or the
Demand charge length of the period of this peak demand. To do this, commercial buildings require operational flexibility
Thermal energy storage to change their operating schedule. In this paper, a multi-level demand charge, along with a real time
MPC pricing (RTP) program and incentivize signals for the participation of thermal energy storage (TES) in-
tegrated commercial buildings in DR programs, has been used to examine building performance in the
presence of these complex pricing schemes. In this regard, a model predictive control (MPC) strategy has
been developed to optimize the performance of the building and to benefit from the operational flexi-
bility of the TES. The results showed that the existence TES in a commercial building leads to more
flexibility for partaking in DR programs, and so a reduction in energy costs and demand charge besides
maintaining occupants comfort level.
© 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction DR programs (Chen et al., 2018). Integrating ESS into commercial

Nowadays, despite the many disparities people have in different
areas so far as ones opinion goes, one point that almost everybody
agrees upon is the importance of energy. This is owing to the fact
that energy is an indispensable part of peoples life. About 40% of the
world's energy consumption is related to buildings, and buildings
are responsible for a third of CO2 emissions (Ryzhov et al., 2019).
Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning Systems (HVACs) are one
of the largest consumers of energy in commercial buildings (about
40% (Capros et al., 2013)), however, these systems can be controlled
and proper control of them could allow building partnerships in DR
programs. The use of energy storage systems (ESSs) alongside these
systems is another promising solution to increase the energy effi-
ciency of buildings and increase their flexibility in participating in
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: yan.caoxi@gmail.com (Y. Cao).
buildings to manage their energy use and partaking in B2G systems
while maintaining thermal comfort requires a well-designed
modeling framework. In order to achieve a proper control strat-
egy, the development of dynamic models requires the development
of a cost effective solution with low computational time
(Mohammadi et al., 2017).
The MPC is an appropriate control model that has proven to be
effective on many energy systems (Afram and Janabi-Sharifi, 2014).
This method was first applied on thermal storage system with a
chiller and tank by the reference (Henze et al., 1997) in 1997, and
the results indicated that under the dynamic pricing conditions for
energy, the MPC method has better performance than conventional
control methods. MPC was used in (Razmara et al., 2017) to control
the operation of a commercial building in DR programs for bi-
directional power flow with the main grid in the presence of ESS.
The results of this study showed that applying MPC resulted in a
reduction in buildings operating cost and also an improvement of
power grid performance by utilizing the flexibility of the HVAC

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.01.266
0959-6526/© 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
316 Y. Cao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 218 (2019) 315e327
system. An MPC-based control framework for a building with
chilled water tank was suggested in (Kim, 2013) to minimize the
operating costs. Discretization of the operation interval in various
limited operation intervals led to the development of a specific
model for each operation range and finally an 8% cost reduction
compared to a storage priority control. A hierarchical MPC was
developed in (Touretzky and Baldea, 2014) to track the indoor
temperature and the operating modes in modifying the cooling
system variables for a building with a chilled water thermal storage
to ensure acceptable thermal comfort. Similar structures can also
be found in (Touretzky and Baldea, 2016; Fiorentini et al., 2017).
MPC has been used in many ways to control various energy
systems, due to the ability of this method to minimize energy costs
and take into account the occupants comfort. This controller has
the ability to control many of the building equipment, such as
HVACs, water heaters, pumps, and other controllable loads, so that
their load can be shifted for DSM goals. The advantages of this
approach to the classic control methods are the ability to consider
system constraints and dynamics and future predictions of the
system variables. An overview of the various methods of modeling
and controlling HVAC systems and examining the benefits, chal-
lenges and barriers to their practical application can be found in
(Afroz et al., 2018). A review with more focus on the MPC method
can be found in (Afram and Janabi-Sharifi, 2014). A comprehensive
overview of the application of the MPC method to control energy
building systems in the presence of ESS can also be found in
(Thieblemont et al., 2017). The evaluations of this study showed
that among the methods used to control the building energy sys-
tem, MPC has had the best results reported in the literature
regarding reducing energy costs and peak demand, and maintain-
ing thermal comfort.
MPC-based models not only can minimize energy consumption,
but can also reduce the peak demand of a building that can
dramatically reduce the total operating cost of a building (Ma et al.,
2012). The performance of the MPC method has been tested in
(Mirakhorli and Dong, 2018a) to control the energy system of a
residential building, taking into account price signals, modeling
power consumer equipment along with electrical storage and
consumer behavior with the goal of minimizing energy costs. In
this study, centralized and decentralized controls were investigated
in the presence of various price signals, and the results showed that
the use of MPC could lead to significant energy savings, which could
be up to 40% in the presence of the battery. The authors in a
comprehensive study (Blum et al., 2019) identified the factors
affecting the accuracy and performance of MPC-based models and
examined the impact of practical problems on the use of MPC in
building energy systems. Using a gray-box model for a single zone
building, the impact of items such as building specifications, model
design, input data sets, data quality and availability, model order,
developed algorithm and simulation software have been studied on
the modeling process and its results. The results of this study
showed that among these effective factors, model structure and
data quality have the greatest impact on the accuracy and modeling
results. An MPC methodology was developed in (Bianchini et al.,
2016) to optimize the performance of heating systems for large
commercial buildings to participate in DR programs based on price
signals provided by a collector based on a simple and linear model
of the building, and the results indicated the robustness of the
proposed method to model uncertainties. However, in this study,
the flexibility offered by ESS has not been investigated. The coop-
eration of roof top units for cooling and heating small and medium-
sized commercial buildings was investigated in (Kim and Braun,
2018) using the MPC method in a real long-term demonstration.
The model has been developed with the aim of minimizing energy
costs, peak demand and deviating from the comfort temperature
range. The results showed that the use of MPC strategy could
reduce the energy consumption and demand of the HVAC system
compared to the traditional control method based on the
thermostat.
Many of the work done on optimizing the energy system is
aimed at minimizing energy costs. Although cost optimization is an
important factor in energy, this factor can ignore the level of
comfort and satisfaction of consumers and lead to consumer
dissatisfaction (Yousefi et al., 2017). Occupants comfort is one of the
key factors in B2G implementation, as a large part of energy con-
sumption in buildings is related to people's activities, such as the
use of electrical equipment, ventilation and lighting. Energy con-
sumption in the building is influenced by the occupants activities
and the level of welfare they desire, and in total, they determine the
energy consumption and peak demand of the building. Therefore,
any change in this pattern of consumption should be based on
satisfaction and welfare of occupants to not affect their daily ac-
tivities. An MPC methodology has been developed in (Razmara
et al., 2017) to optimize the performance of a commercial build-
ing energy system in the presence of DR programs, in a way that
does not change much in the comfort of consumers. In this work,
with the consideration of PV and a battery, with optimization in
two deterministic and probabilistic modes, the efficiency of the
proposed model has been proven in reducing energy costs and load
ramp rate. The performance of a phase-change material energy
exchanger in residential, service, and commercial buildings using
the MPC strategy has been investigated in (Gholamibozanjani et al.,
2018) to minimize the energy cost of building, taking into account
the optimal temperature for consumers. However, in this study, the
potential of these buildings for participation in DR programs has
not been studied. Performance of modern HVAC systems compared
to a conventional ventilation system in a building under various
weather conditions in Moscow, with the goal of minimizing energy
costs and maintaining consumer comfort, taking into account the
physical parameters of the building, the uncertainty and prediction
horizon was investigated in (Ryzhov et al., 2019). The results
showed that the use of MPC could reduce the peak demand through
pre-heating and pre-cooling the building during off-peak hours, in
addition to reducing building costs, resulting in maintaining indoor
temperature and reducing the effects of harsh weather condition.
DR was not considered in this study. A multi-objective optimization
framework was provided in (Gomez-Herrera and Anjos, 2018) for
considering energy costs and occupants comfort in residential
buildings and benefiting from their participation in incentive-based
DR programs considering the battery as an energy storage system. A
planning and operation model has been developed that can opti-
mize building performance in order to reduce energy costs and
peak demand. The authors in (Mirakhorli and Dong, 2018b) used
the MPC strategy for integrated management of a large number of
residential buildings in the distribution network to provide B2G
services to reduce energy and peak demand and improve network
sustainability. This model is capable of controlling building energy
equipment such as HVAC and ESS, so that in addition to optimal
controlling of the building energy system, have the ability to
participate in an aggregated control to provide ancillary services to
the network. A significant part of the energy costs of commercial
buildings is related to the demand charge. As a result, commercial
buildings to reduce this cost should reduce the peak demand or the
length of the period of this demand. To do this, commercial
buildings require operational flexibility that can change their
operating schedule to reduce costs. The study in (Braun, 2003) on
the effect of using MPC to reduce peak demand showed a decrease
of about 35% compared with traditional control systems. A com-
parison of MPC performance in the presence of various price signals
including constant and time of usage (TOU) pricing in (Oldewurtel
 Y. Cao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 218 (2019) 315e327
et al., 2010) indicated that peak demand was reduced in terms of
using TOU scheme. A similar result was reported for large buildings
considering the battery as an energy storage system (Oldewurtel
et al., 2011). The demand charge was considered as the objective
function in (Hajiah and Krarti, 2012a, 2012b) and the results indi-
cated a significant reduction in peak demand in a building equipped
with ice storage and the use of the MPC strategy. The results of
these studies showed that the use of MPC in storage facilities could
lead to a reduction in peak demand. A two-level optimization
model for controlling TES with high control, and chiller with low-
control has been developed in (Deng et al., 2015) so that at the
high level the TES function is optimized by using the demand for
cooling and electricity prices, and the results of this optimized
performance used by MPC to optimize chiller performance. A
similar model was developed in (Ioli et al., 2016) for an MPC-based
two-level optimization for storage-integrated buildings to optimize
the building temperature and tank storage performance. The au-
thors in (Zhang and Augenbroe, 2018) presented a planning and
operation optimization model for minimizing NPC and operating
costs for a variety of commercial buildings. In this paper, demand
charge along with DR programs is intended to evaluate the flexi-
bility of commercial buildings in response to these programs, but
the role of ESS has been ignored to increase this flexibility.
The demand charge represents a penalty for large consumers in
the power system. Today, with the development of technology and
the increase in the number of power consumer equipment and the
unprecedented growth of the size of commercial buildings, despite
the improvement in energy efficiency, peak demand for these
buildings can be increased by increasing size. By increasing this
peak demand, the amount of power provided by the network
should also be increased, which means more investment in the
network infrastructures. The demand charge is considered for
sharing large power customers at these costs. This charge is
considered as the cost of paying for the maximum power con-
sumption in kW in a given period (such as a month or even in
certain periods of a day) for consumers whose power in kW exceeds
a threshold value. To reduce the peak demand in buildings, various
ways have been considered in literature so that they can be cate-
gorized as methods for increasing energy efficiency, peak shaving,
load shifting, or application of local distributed energy sources
(DERs). All of these can increase the flexibility of the building in
response to network conditions. This flexibility is defined as the
ability of consumers to revise energy consumption patterns
without disturbances in their performance and receiving services.
In general, energy flexibility and demand charge have a reverse
relationship. Building management systems often use solutions
such as the use of ESS, local DGs, DSM, and occupational behavioral
features to increase the flexibility of building, which can also affect
the demand charge. Therefore, from a point of view, demand charge
can be considered as a penalty for buildings without energy flexi-
bility. Therefore, it can be said that paying attention to reducing
demand charge can lead to reduced investments and strategies to
increase the flexibility of the building and increase its efficiency for
active participation in smart grids. All of the above mentioned
research have so far ignored the demand charge survey and did not
address the impact of demand charge on the operation of TES-
integrated buildings in the presence of DR programs. In this pa-
per, we discuss the increasing flexibility of commercial buildings in
the presence of TES to participate in DR programs, taking into ac-
count the demand charge. To the best of our knowledge, there has
been no research in the literature that considers all of these items in
a building energy system optimization model. Considering demand
charge develop the conventional DR concept, which is based on
sending incentive signals in high-priced situations or the occur-
rence of an event in the network. Therefore, the main contributions
317
of this paper can be summarized as follows:

To develop an MPC strategy to optimize the performance of
commercial buildings by considering DR and TES with the goal
of minimizing energy costs, demand charge and maintaining the
occupants comfort.

Considering a multi-level demand charge program and its
impact on the performance of TES-integrated commercial
buildings in the presence of RTP-based DR programs.

Discussing the importance of considering demand charge in
modeling, and examining the effect of demand charge on
building consumption curves and costs, including energy and
DR costs.

Modeling the uncertainty of electrical and cooling demands and
considering actual modeling for equipment such as actual and
time-variable curves for the coefficient of performance (COP) of
chillers.

Perform sensitivity analysis on unmet load values on system
costs to demonstrate the importance of thermal comfort in the
proposed model.
The remainder of this study is organized as follows. Section 2
introduces the methodology and system model, including phys-
ical modeling of building components. Section 3 devoted to opti-
mization problem and control method, including different pricing
signals and MPC for TES and chillers. Section 4 presents numerical
results of simulation on a real commercial building and discussions.
Finally, section 5 concludes this paper.
2. Model description
The peak demand usually occurs during hot days of the year
when the air conditioner systems of residential and commercial
buildings are active, as a result of which, thermal loads have a high
potential for partaking in DR programs. However, controlling these
loads by system operators may reduce the welfare of the consumers
during hot days. The TES can reduce the risk of loss of the desired
level of welfare for consumers and increase the probability of a
successful and efficient consumer participation in DR programs. A
typical TES consists of an isolated tank and a chiller that is filled
with ice or cold water. Cold water and ice are usually produced and
stored during periods with low electricity prices and used to pro-
vide thermal loads during periods with high electricity prices.
Because of reducing maximum load demand during peak hours,
this load shift is very valuable to the energy system operator.
In this section, mathematical equations of the proposed model
for the optimal performance of the building as an energy system are
presented. This model has been applied to a commercial building in
New York City (Consolidated edison company of new york, 2016),
and the real DR programs has been obtained from (Kim, 2012).
Physical models (considering a base model on reference (Henze
et al., 1997)) have been developed for considering second chiller,
chiller ramp limitations, time varying COPs, and heat exchanger
and storage efficiencies. The final model is a multi-Input multi-
output (MIMO) system with time-varying dynamics. The variable k
represents the index in the set t ¼ f0; …; N  1g, where N ¼ T=t is
the number of time steps with the intervals equal to tðhÞ in the time
horizon T which is 24 h x1 ðkÞ is the charge level of ice tank (kWh)
with maximum amount of x1 ðkÞ and x2 ðkÞ is the thermal demand
from the previous time steps. The amount of x2 ðkÞ can be negative,
as an example when the building is precooled during previous
night. These two are state variables of the system state. u1 ðkÞ, u2 ðkÞ
and u3 ðkÞ are the power consumed for producing ice (kW), the
share of the demand which is supplied by ice tank and the power
consumption of the main chiller (kW), respectively. These three
318 Y. Cao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 218 (2019) 315e327

variables are control variables which their values in each step are modeled and solved by applying MPC method. Several price signals
determined by the optimization problem. For each i which have been considered to encourage the consumers for participating
i2f1; 2; 3g, the maximum operating point is defined as ui  0 and in DR programs. The conventional methods for controlling the
the maximum ramp as Dui . In order to apply the ramp variable energy systems of the building with TES are methods such as
constraints the uðk  1Þ added as another state variable as equation storage priority, chiller function priority or relatively stable control.
(1). However, such methods are effective in energy systems with TOU
electricity price, but the effective operation of these methods in
h iT
XðkÞ ¼ x1 ðkÞ; x2 ðkÞ; uðk  1ÞT (1) more complex pricing systems is still under question. Control-
based optimization methods have a better performance in
Therefore, the state constraints as xðkÞ2c ¼ ½0; x1   R4 and balancing between competitive incentives such as multi-level de-
control constraints as uðkÞ2UðXðkÞÞ are defined based on equation mand charge, revenues from DR programs and customers comfort
(2). level. In this paper, a convex optimization framework for predictive
n    control model of the thermal storage system is proposed taking into
  
UðXðkÞÞ ¼ u2R3 ui 2½0; ui ; ui  xiþ2 ðkÞ  Dui (2) account the multi-level demand charge program and DR price
signals.
By considering ce ðkÞ as energy price and
xðkÞ is state and uðkÞ is control input. XðkÞ and UðkÞ define the
pðkÞ ¼ u1 ðkÞ þ u3 ðkÞ þ w2 ðkÞ as the total power demand, the energy
constraints of state and control values, respectively. w1 ðkÞ is the
cost is defined as equation (7).
thermal load of the building and kWðthÞ and w2 ðkÞ are the other
electrical loads (lighting, plug loads, etc). In this study thermal load
and other electrical loads are assumed as joint normal distribution ge ðk; uðkÞ; wðkÞÞ ¼ ce ðkÞpðkÞDt (7)
as equations (3) and (4). The presented model consider the pa-
Energy prices for each hour (ce ðkÞ) are announced at 16 p.m. the
rameters of the distribution from which the buildings load is
day before, so the energy price for 24 h of simulation are deter-
sampled. The building's load is considered as a Gaussian distribu-
ministic. For i2f1; 2; 3g is assumed that ti ⊆t is the set of steps
tion which its mean value equal to the actual value of the load from
according to the level of the demand charge and pi ðkÞ is the peak
historical data.
demand in the previous step before k as ti ∩f0; …; k  1g. The var-
iable pi ð0Þ is valued based on peak demand in the previous month i,
wðkÞ ¼ ½w1 ðkÞ; w2 ðkÞT (3)
and if k ¼ 0 (the beginning of the month), past data are used for
 valuation. So each pi follows the dynamics and variations described
X 
wðkÞ  N wðkÞ; ðkÞ in equation (8).
h i X (4)
E ðwðjÞ  wðJÞÞðwðkÞ  wðkÞÞT ¼ djk ðkÞ 
maxfpi ðkÞ; pðkÞg k2ti
pi ðk þ 1Þ ¼ (8)
It is also assumed that the building's operator in step 0 is aware pi ðkÞ k;ti
P
of the values for all wðkÞ and ðkÞ. The dynamic system is defined
If it is assumed cd ; ðti Þ  0 is the cost of demand in ti , then the
as equation (5) or can be summarized as (6).
increase in the three-level demand charge between the steps k1
and k2  k1 is equal to equation (9).
x1 ðk þ 1Þ ¼ bx1 ðkÞ þ kice ðkÞu1 ðkÞDt  u2 ðkÞDt=h
x2 ðk þ 1Þ ¼ x2 ðkÞ þ ½w1 ðkÞ  u2 ðkÞ  kmain u3 ðkÞDt (5)
xi ðk þ 1Þ ¼ ui2 ðkÞ; i2f2; 3; 4g   X
3 
k2
gd fuðkÞ; wðkÞg ¼ cd ðti Þ   pi ðk1 Þ
k ¼ k1
i¼1
Xðk þ 1Þ ¼ AXðkÞ þ BðkÞuðkÞ þ GwðkÞ 
(6)
A2R55 ; BðkÞ2R53 andG2R52 þ max pðkÞ (9)
k2ti ∩fk1 ;…;k2 g
Where b2½0; 1 is ice storage efficiency, h2½0; 1 is the heat
exchange efficiency between the building and the tank, kice ðkÞ and In order to prevent overcooling or undercooling, it is possible to
kmain ðkÞ are the COP of the ice chiller and the main chiller respec- impose the exact cooling demand at all stages, but this might make
tively. The time dependence of the chiller coefficients makes these the plans such as pre-cooling impossible. Therefore, in this study, a
coefficients variable with outdoor temperature variations. It is quadratic equation is considered as penalty for the deviation of the
assumed that the building's operator has perfect knowledge of X(k). supplied cooling value from the designed value as equation (10).
Estimation of unmeasured states can be conducted by advanced
methods like the use of a Kalman filter, but it would add an un-
gu ðk; XðkÞÞ ¼ cu ðkÞx2 ðkÞ2 (10)
necessary layer of complexity to this study, while taking focus away
from the key topic of this research (i.e., TES-integrated building Where cu ðkÞ > 0 is the cost of cooling energy not-supplied. The DR
optimization in light of different pricing schemes). The consider- program are considered in energy costs as cost of DR ($=kWh) for
ation of different forecasting scenarios is left for future work. decreasing the demand during the DR periods which are deter-
mined by the operator. The cost of DR can be calculated as equation
(11).
3. Optimization problem and control method
  X
In this paper, participation of the TES-integrated commercial gdr fuðkÞ; wðkÞgk2tdr ¼ cdr Dt ½b
p ðkÞ  pðkÞ (11)
buildings in DR programs is evaluated. A commercial building k2tdr
(including offices) with multi-level demand chatge is studied as
case study and RTP for day ahead is determined by the system Where bp ðkÞ is the base power consumption in step k determined by
operator. A penalty has also been considered for customers that not operator. Daily cost of tank discourage is considered as equation
participate in DR programs. A stochastic optimization problem is (12).
 Y. Cao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 218 (2019) 315e327
gt ðXðNÞÞ ¼ ct ðx1 ð0Þ  x1 ðNÞÞþ
Where the initial mode Xð0Þ is predetermined and adjustable
parameter. Therefore, the net cost of each step is calculated as
equation (13).
gk ðxðkÞ; uðkÞ; wðkÞÞ ¼ ge ðk; uðkÞ; wðkÞÞ þ gu ðk; xðkÞÞ
The input terminal cost is the sum of demand charge, DR cost,
and tank discharge cost as equation (14).
 
gN xðNÞ; fuðkÞ; wðkÞgk2t ¼ gd fuðkÞ; wðkÞgk2t
 
þ gdr fuðkÞ; wðkÞgk2tdr
þ gt ðxðNÞÞ
As a result, in order to obtain the optimization problem, by
having the initial state Xð0Þ, the expected total cost of a particular
policy, p ¼ fm0 ; …; mN1 g which uðkÞ ¼ mk ðxðkÞÞ, with its related
constraints can be minimized as equation (15).
" #
 X
N1
min Jp ðx0 Þ ¼ E gN xðNÞ; fuðkÞ; wðkÞgk2t þ gk ðxðkÞ; uðkÞ; wðkÞÞ
k¼0
s:t: x1 ðk þ 1Þ ¼ bx1 ðkÞ þ kice ðkÞu1 ðkÞDt  u2 ðkÞDt=h
x2 ðk þ 1Þ ¼ x2 ðkÞ þ ½w1 ðkÞ  u2 ðkÞ  kmain u3 ðkÞDt
xi ðk þ 1Þ ¼ ui2 ðkÞ; i2f2; 3; 4g
Where the expected value for all k2t occurs during WðkÞ. And
more compactly, the optimal control problem is defined as equa-
tion (16).
min Jp ðx0 Þ
s:t: xðk þ 1Þ ¼ AxðkÞ þ BðkÞuðkÞ þ GwðkÞ
xðk þ 1Þ2c
At each step, the MPC optimizes the model in such a way that
result in the lowest cost of energy consumption and the highest
revenue from participating in the DR programs. MPC policies are
calculated in each step by an online convex optimization.
Fig. 1. Energy price and demand-response.
319
4. Simulation results
(12)
In this section, in order to evaluate the model in a real economic
environment, simulation has applied on a commercial building in
New York City following ASHRAE Standard 90.1 (U.s. department of
energy, 2016). The hottest day in 2013 in New York City (July 18) is
selected as the simulation horizon. In this simulation, the hours
(13) between 14 and 18 is considered as DR period for reducing energy
consumption. Energy costs, demand charge and DR are shown in
Figs. 1e3.
Fig. 1 shows DR cost is equal to 3ð$=kWhÞ and the maximum RTP
of 0.328 ð$=kWhÞ. In the DR mode, which is determined by the
network operator, if the building partake in the program, it will
benefit from the load reduction, or will be penalized if does not
participate in the program. Fig. 2 shows the demand charge values
(14) in on-peak, shoulder and off-peak intervals (t1 ; t2 ; t3 respectively).
Basically, the demand charge is the cost for maximum demand. In
this case t3 3t2 3t1 , therefore, if the maximum demand occurs in
the interval t3 , the cost for the building will be equal to cd ðt1 Þ þ
cd ðt2 Þ þ cd ðt3 Þ. Fig. 3 shows the under or over cooling price, which
(15)
varies with time, and is at the highest level during the hot-hours of
the day except for lunch and residents gathering time. This item is
for considering the comfort level of consumers and residents of the
building, and if the building operator does not have the capacity to
supply the cooling demand, it should pay a penalty for unmet load.
Therefore, in optimization problem, the system operator tries to
minimize this cost to maintain the comfort level. The case study is
(16) the “OfficeLarge” prototype, 14,200 m2 office building in New York
City following ASHRAE Standard 90.1e2013 (U.s. department of
energy, 2016). The physical parameters are given in Table 1.
Outdoor temperature and the COPs of the chillers which is
changing during day could be seen in Figs. 4 and 5 respectively. The
COP of a chiller is a function of temperature so with increasing
320 Y. Cao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 218 (2019) 315e327

Fig. 2. Three-level demand charge plans.

Fig. 3. Penalty for unmet cooling demand.

Table 1
Fixed parameters.

Parameter Symbol Unit Amount

time horizon T hours 24

time step Dt hours 0.5
MPC horizon (number of time steps) H e 48
Storage tank capacity x1 kWhth 1760
Maximum capacity of the ice chiller u1 kW 94
Maximum variation of the ice chiller Du1 kW 70.5
Maximum amount of ice melting in each step u2 kWhth 510
Maximum variation of ice melting in each step Du2 kWhth 510
Maximum capacity of the main chiller u3 kW 73
Maximum variation of the ice chiller Du1 kW 54.75
Depreciation cost of the storage tan ct $\kWth 0.18
Ice maintenance factor b e 0.98
Ice storage output efficiency h e 0.9
Initial peak demand (all hours) p1 ð0Þ kW 200
Initial peak demand (8a.m. 10p.m.) p2 ð0Þ kW 200
Initial peak demand (8a.m. 6 p.m.) p3 ð0Þ kW 200
Initial states ðx1 ð0Þ; x2 ð0ÞÞ kWhth 176.0

temperature the coefficient value decreases as in Fig. 5.
Energy consumption depends on factors like culture, consumers
behavior, climate condition, and so on. Therefore, the demand for
the future horizons is uncertain and ignoring this uncertainty leads
to a reduction in model accuracy and unrealistic results. An effec-
tive solution for considering uncertainties in models is probabilistic
methods which are developed based on the probability density
function (PDF) and can be applied in cases where sufficient statis-
tical data is available. In this study, in order to consider the demand
uncertainty, Gaussian distribution for cooling loads and other
electrical loads of the building has been developed and by gener-
ating random numbers using the probability distribution of the
 Y. Cao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 218 (2019) 315e327 321

Fig. 4. Outdoor temperature.

Fig. 5. Performance coefficient of the chillers.

historical data, demand for each time step is calculated which can
be seen in Figs. 6 and 7. In this case, the load of a building in each
step is considered as a PDF with a normal distribution which its
mean value equal to the actual value of the load from historical data
and its variance equal to 10% of the mean value.
As can be seen in Figs. 6 and 7, there is a base load in the daily
pattern of building energy consumption and the demand during
night and in the early morning is equal to this base load. Then, the
amount of load increases to reach a peak at noon or afternoon, and
afterward reduces to reach the base load. The charge state of the
storage tank based on MPC policy and power consumption of the
chillers are showed in Figs. 8 and 9 respectively.

Fig. 6. Historical and predicted cooling demand.

322 Y. Cao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 218 (2019) 315e327

Fig. 7. Historical and predicted data of the other electrical load demand.

Fig. 8. Storage tank state of charge based on MPC policy.

Fig. 9. Power consumption of the chillers.

By implementing the proposed model, the building can operate
during the night hours. About 3 a.m., the main chiller for pre-
cooling the building and the ice chiller for filling the ice storage
tank, start working. During the DR period (14e18), both chillers are
turned off and the building's cooling demand is provided by
melting ice. Therefore, energy consumption for cooling demand
supply is minimized during this period and because the chillers fill
up the storage tank during low energy price hours and the storage
energy are used during peak hours with high energy price, the cost
of energy decrease. Fig. 10 shows the unmet cooling demand which
is not provided in each time step and transferred to the next step.
The negative values in this figure represent pre-cooling modes.
 Y. Cao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 218 (2019) 315e327 323

Fig. 10. Unmet cooling demand.

During the night hours, the occupancy or activity level and so
the cooling demand is minimized and the amount of unmet cooling
load is at its highest level. There is no penalty for unmet cooling
demand during this period, and as a result of which the building's
operator uses the chillers to produce ice and precooling the
building. The penalty cost of unmet cooling demand can be seen in
Fig. 11.
Figs. 10 and 11 reflect the impact of thermal comfort level and its
priority on the model. Fully providing the demand leads high cost
for the system, on the other hand the system operator must pay a
penalty cost for unmet cooling load which is calculated as the dif-
ference between the production level and the cooling demand plus
storage capacity. The proposed model establishes a balance be-
tween the cost of provided cooling load and the penalty cost for
unmet cooling load and offers the lowest cost plan for the building.
As shown in Fig. 11, within a few hours after 18:00, due to the full
discharge of the storage tank, the maximum penalty for unmet
cooling load has been paid. With the full discharge of the storage
tank at these hours, the main chiller is used to provide cooling
demand and the ice chiller for ice re-production and increasing the
charge storage level of the storage tank, and therefore the cost of
providing cooling demand increases. A sensitivity analysis for
showing the effect of different values of unmet cooling demand on
the penalty cost has been done and summarized in Fig. 12. The
importance of the thermal comfort in the proposed model can be
realized form this sensitivity analysis (not providing cooling de-
mand during the daytime leads to huge cost for the system).
Figs. 13 and 14 show the effect of the demand charge program
on the performance of the buildings energy system which repre-
sent the power consumption and the costs in the presence of de-
mand charge programs and without considering it in the objective
function.
Demand charge program has little impact on the cost of energy
and unmet cooling demand. In other words, it can be said that the
demand charge program does not have much effect on the total
energy cost profile, and only changes the pattern of energy con-
sumption which reduces the cost paid for peak demand. On the
other hand, there is little effect on penalties for unmet cooling
demand which means that the program does not influence the
consumers level of comfort and priority, and the amount of demand
shaving leads to a small amount of unmet cooling demand which is
insignificant compared to the cost paid for maximum demand.
Without including the demand charge program in the objective
function, demand costs of the system are approximately doubled.
In these figures, it can also be seen that there is a conflict between
the DR and demand charge programs. Without demand charge
program, the ice tank can be refilled between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
and the building can be pre-cooled and with DR program, reduce
the demand and earn more revenue for the building. Fig. 15 shows
the total power consumption under MPC policy, baseline load and

Fig. 11. Penalty cost of unmet cooling demand.

324 Y. Cao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 218 (2019) 315e327

Fig. 12. Penalty profiles for different amounts of unmet cooling loads.

Fig. 13. Load demand profile with/without demand charge program.

Fig. 14. System costs with/without demand charge program.

the case without energy storage.
The baseline demand in Fig. 15 represents the power con-
sumption without the DR program which the cost of the DR is
considered to be zero, so the incentivize pricing plans are RTP and
three-level demand charge. In the baseline plan, during the hours
15 to 17 due to high energy price the main chiller was shut down.
However, in this case, the revenue from participation in the DR
program is reduced. As seen in Fig. 15, in the system without TES,
the demand in off-peak periods is at its lowest amount (12 a.m.e8
a.m.). On the contrary, during the day and in the period with
 Y. Cao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 218 (2019) 315e327 325

Fig. 15. Total energy consumption under different policies.

expensive energy price, due to the increased cooling demand, the
system operator has to supply these loads and increase energy
consumption, and especially peak demand occurs during these
hours. In the system equipped with energy storage, the storage tank
is filled in off-peak periods with lower energy price and the stored
energy is used during periods with higher energy price which
decreases the costs and the peak demand.
The results under the DR plan can be seen in Figs. 16 and 17
which represent the cost of energy consumption and the cost of
the DR, respectively. Fig. 16 illustrates the cost of buildings energy
consumption without taking into account the building attendance
in the DR program. From hour 14 to 18, the building is requested to

Fig. 16. The cost of energy consumption.

Fig. 17. The cost of demand-response in the building's energy system.

326 Y. Cao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 218 (2019) 315e327

participate in the DR program and reduce the costs. The building and minimizing payment for maximum demand. Note that the
will receive revenue from the collaboration for reduction in energy three above mentioned conditions, except those mentioned above,
consumption based on Fig. 4. are the same in all other cases, such as meeting the technical re-
If the building increases its energy consumption in this period, it quirements, minimizing the cost of energy and the cost of cooling
will be penalized. In this study, at 15:30, the energy consumption of energy not supplied. A better display of power consumption in
the building in the optimal model is more than its baseline (can be these three scenarios is shown in Fig. 18.
seen in Fig. 15), and at this time the building pays a cost for this The power in each simulation step can be found in Fig. 18 for
increase in consumption but it can be seen that in total, the building three different modes. As shown in Table 2, the sum of the power in
has received significant revenue by participating in the DR program the proposed mode has the lowest value, and its value in the sce-
between hours 14 to 18 (Fig. 17) and this amount of revenue is more nario 2 is higher than the scenario 1. The reason for this is the se-
than the total cost of the buildings energy consumption in this lection of a policy that does not take into account the demand
period. As a result, it can be said that in the DR period, the building charge. In scenario 2, the building operator, in addition to charging
revenues is higher than the cost of energy consumption. Besides, the tank at night, also pre-cools the building and refills the storage
this decrease in demand leads to the peak shaving consumption tank before the DR period by turning on the chillers to attain more
and energy losses in the distribution network. revenue in DR period. Implementation of the chillers during the
The information obtained from the above figures is summarized mid-hours of the day, with the highest energy costs and demand
in Table 2. In this table power consumption has been investigated in charge, in addition to increasing power consumption, leads to a
three scenario. dramatic increase in operating costs. While Scenario 1 does not
actually have a DR program, and there is no need to pre-cool and fill

Scenario 1: proposed model without DR. the storage tanks before the DR period. Therefore, the consumption

Scenario 2: proposed model without demand charge s. curve follows a more flat behavior and the objective is minimizing

Scenario 3: Optimized control in the proposed model. energy costs, paying for peak demand, and penalizing cooling en-
ergy not supplied. So, as shown in Table 2, the cost of the peak
Scenario 1 is a condition in which the DR cost is zero and the demand for scenario 1 is lower than the scenario 2. However, on the
cost or benefit is not calculated for increasing or decreasing con- other hand, revenue from DR in Scenario 1 is zero and in Scenario 2,
sumption in a given period (DR period). Scenario 1 is a situation has a significant amount.
where three-level demand charge tariffs apply to the demand from In a comparison of scenario 1 and scenario 3, we can mention
the network operator, but the minimization of the payment for the cost of payment to the maximum demand in these two situa-
maximum demand in the objective function is not considered. The tions. In scenario 1, because of the zero DR costs, the consumption
scenario 3 is the proposed MPC control, taking into account the DR curve follows a flat pattern, which is close to the maximum demand
during the day. Therefore, the maximum power consumption of the
building in this case occurs in the peak period (the highest demand
charge) and results in high cost for the system. In scenario 3,
Table 2
despite the higher peak demand compared to scenario 1, due to the
Different optimization scenarios.
occurrence of this peak demand in the medium-peak period (hours
Variable Scenario 1 Scenario 2 Scenario 3 18 to 22), the payment for maximum demand is less than scenario
Total power (kW) 7898.6695 7962.6738 7830.5703 1. For the scenario 2 and 3, this is true too. In scenario 2, which there
Energy consumption cost ($) 689.2044 692.7054 682.90214 is no attempt to minimize peak demand and shifting it to off-peak
DR cost ($) 0 554.065 436.48154
periods, in addition to the fact that the maximum demand is
Energy cost considering DR ($) 689.2044 128.83714 246.4206
Demand charge ($) 2459.7172 3566.59 1896.84 greater than that of the scenario 3, this amount occurred in peak
Energy not-supplied cost ($) 68.384 71.915 63.6646 period and leads to the highest demand charge for the system.
Total operation cost ($) 3217.3056 3906.0247 2453.3458 However, as noted above, in the scenario 2, due to pre-cooling and

Fig. 18. Total energy consumption in different scenarios.

 Y. Cao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 218 (2019) 315e327
increasing the charge level of the storage tanks during before the
DR period, a further reduction in the power consumption in DR
period occurs and building earns more revenue. On the contrary,
this policy imposes a significant cost on the system in terms of
demand charge. Therefore, it can be said that the proposed model
provides the optimal mode for the performance of the energy
system of the building, and leads to the lowest operating cost by the
balance between the various pricing schemes such as hourly energy
pricing, DR, and the three-level demand charge.
5. Conclusion
In this study, the effects of various DSM programs on the optimal
performance of a TES-integrated commercial building have been
investigated. A commercial building in the New York City was
selected as a case study and optimal controlling the buildings en-
ergy system under dynamic pricing, demand charge and DR pro-
gram has been studied. Real DR programs which are to apply for
commercial consumers in the New York City were used and the cost
of demand charge was included in the objective function of the
optimization problem. In the developed programs, the commercial
loads can attain revenue by participating in the DR programs. In
proposed model, the thermal comfort of consumers has been
considered by assuming a penalty cost for unmet cooling demand
during the warm days of the year. The simulation results indicate
that the MPC method could balance the goals in a real economic
environment. Dynamic pricing, demand charge and DR programs
lead to shift the peak demand so that minimize the energy cost.
Although without DR plans, a higher energy price under a real-time
pricing method, can lead to lower consumption (by turning off the
main chiller), but by including DR program, the consumer could
reach a higher revenue. Such conflicts among various DSM pro-
grams show the need for an control program to achieve optimal
performance of the buildings’ energy system. In a nutshell, the
proposed model has the ability to balance the various DSM pro-
grams and achieve the optimal performance of the buildings en-
ergy system in a complex economic environment.
Acknowledgment
This paper is supported by Key Laboratory Scientific Research
Project of Shaanxi Education Department (Grant: 17JS058) and
Shaanxi Key Research and Development Plan (Grant: 2018ZDXM-
GY-077).
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