Abstract:
Building energy efficiency retrofit (BEER) projects are initiated in many nations and regions over the world. Existing
studies of BEER focus on modeling and planning based on one building and one year period of retrofitting, which
cannot be applied to certain large BEER projects with multiple buildings and multi-year retrofit. In this paper, the
large-scale BEER problem is defined in a general time-building-technology (TBT) framework, which fits essential
requirements of real-world projects. The large-scale BEER is newly studied in the control approach rather than the
optimization approach commonly used before. Optimal control is proposed to design optimal retrofitting strategy
in terms of maximal energy savings and maximal net present value (NPV). The designed strategy is dynamically
changing on dimensions of time, building and technology. The TBT framework and the optimal control approach are
verified in a large BEER project, and results indicate that promising performance of energy and cost savings can be
achieved in the general TBT framework.
