Abstract:

Hydronic radiant heating systems embedded in building constructions are receiving increased interest due to their potential for high energy efficiency and improved thermal comfort, but their slow time constants pose challenges when controlling space conditions. We address this problem via a system architecture that combines theradiant heating system with a separate air-source heat pump serving the same space. In this paper, we develop a new coordinating control method for this proposed system by using a set of reduced order models generated from a set of coupled Modelica models of the individual subsystems. This new control architecture does not require significant modification of standard heat pump control architectures, and results in both improved thermal comfort and reduced energy consumption.