Simulation and control of thermally activated building systems (TABS)

Abstract

Buildings account for a significant amount of global energy use and CO2 emissions. Thermally Activated Building Systems (TABS) are a technology with potential for significantly reducing buildings energy use. TABS are heating and cooling systems that are integrated in the building structure. They mainly exchange heat through radiation and are able to store heat in the building thermal mass. TABS high thermal mass and their interaction with the building structure make their energy evaluation and design process difficult. Development of simulation models has been essential to study the design and control of TABS. Control of TABS is challenging due to the slow response time and storage capacity. A lot of research has been conducted to develop control strategies that fully exploit its energy saving potential and that maximize the use of renewable energies. This paper summarizes the main characteristics of TABS and presents the developed simulation models and control strategies.

The authors would like to thank the Catalan Government for the quality accreditation given to their research group (2014 SGR 123). This projects has received funding from the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) under Grant agreement N° PIRSES-GA-2013-610692 (INNOSTORAGE) and from European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N° 657466 (INPATH-TES) and from EEA-Grants under grant IDI-20140914. The work was partially funded by the Spanish government grant ENE2015-64117-C5-1-R and grant ENE2015-64117-C5-3-R. Alvaro de Gracia would like to thank Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad de España for Grant Juan de la Cierva, FJCI-2014-19940.