Multi agent system to optimize comfort and energy flows in the built environment

This paper discusses the control of building energy comfort management systems led by the economic movement within the energy market resulting in different prices. This new generation of building management systems focuses on the application of multi-agent systems for autonomous flexible operation of building services systems to obtain overall improvement energy efficiency and comfort. Multi-agent systems have proven to be successful in many applications to detach the timely interdependencies between systems and applications and come to a decentralize approach. In this study a multi-agent system (MAS) is developed to control and manage building services systems. A case study on an existing building system pointed out that energy consumption is reduced of a central air conditioning unit and local heating and cooling units with help of the proposed market driven multi-agent system, while maintaining comfort within the bands of user preferences. Furthermore it can be concluded that the system adapts to the dynamic changing situation and amount of momentary available resources.