A Representative Simulation Model for Benchmarking Building Control Strategies

To increase the energy efficiency of building energy systems, many control strategies have been investigated in recent years. Researchers apply control strategies to different building energy systems in order to evaluate their performance. However, the scientific community lacks a commonly accepted reference building model and evaluation criteria. In this paper, we therefore propose a simulation-based benchmark to rate different control strategies for building energy systems. Based on identified requirements for benchmarking, we design a building model on which researchers can apply different control strategies and compare them with each other. The building consists of five different rooms and an energy system with several heat and cold generators. A concrete core activation and a central air-handling unit with additional decentralized cooling and heating registers supply each room individually. To benchmark a control strategy, the model calculates the consumed energy, the primary energy costs and the indicators of indoor air quality. We apply the benchmark to two different control strategies. The benchmark provides reproducible quantitative assessments of the performance of the tested control strategies. The diversity of the energy system as well as the individual air-conditioning of the rooms allow complex and sophisticated control strategies to demonstrate their potentials.