Optimal chiller loading in a district cooling system with thermal energy storage

A novel technique for solving a dynamic optimal chiller loading problem is presented. This method reduces the complexity of the dynamic problem by considering all chillers to be a single, optimal chiller, which significantly reduces the number of decision variables. A static optimal chiller loading problem is solved as a sub-problem to give the optimal total power required at each time interval. The static optimization problem is solved by choosing the best solution from a series of convex quadratic programming problems, thus ensuring global optimality at each time interval. This hierarchical structure takes advantage of the extra degrees of freedom provided by thermal energy storage, while effectively breaking the problem down into a much simpler problem.