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Park Load Reduction by Preconditioning of Buildings at Night
Abstract
Cooling loads during the peak period can be
reduced if a building is subcooled a few degrees
below its normal thermostat setpoint during the
preceding night. During the day, the thermostat
must control the warmup in such a way that the
stored energy is released when it brings maximum,
benefit. This strategy exploits the heat capacity
of the building itself; it can be implemented at
low cost and without sacrifice in comfort. To
evaluate the strategy for a given building and
control the thermostat one needs to know the
thermal behavior of the building. Building
temperature, internal load and solar data are used
to determine values of a small number of thermal
parameters which characterize the building.
Several thermostat control strategies.
distinguished by their knowledge of the building
dynamics, are described and simulated, both with a
data-based dynamic model. Universal graphs for
effective storage capacity and storage efficiency
are developed. A simple economic analysis shows
that subcooling is likely to be cost-effective for
many commercial buildings with current electric
rate schedules.
Citation
Rabl, A.; Norford, L. K. (1988). Park Load Reduction by Preconditioning of Buildings at Night. Energy Systems Laboratory (http://esl.tamu.edu); Texas A&M University (http://www.tamu.edu). Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /6502.