High level central plant optimization

A method for controlling equipment to serve energy loads, the method comprising:

• obtaining utility rate data indicating a price of one or more resources consumed by the equipment to serve the energy loads at each of a plurality of time steps of a time period;
• generating an objective function that expresses a total monetary cost of operating the equipment over the time period as a function of the utility rate data and an amount of the one or more resources consumed by the equipment to serve the energy loads at each of the plurality of time steps;
• generating a resource consumption curve for each of a plurality of groups of the equipment, each resource consumption curve indicating a relationship between resource consumption and load production for one of the groups of the equipment;
• using the resource consumption curves to impose constraints on the objective function;
• performing an optimization of the objective function over the time period subject to the constraints imposed using the resource consumption curves and subject to load equality constraints on the equipment to determine a distribution of predicted energy loads across the equipment at each of the plurality of time steps, wherein the load equality constraints ensure that the distribution satisfies the predicted energy loads at each of the plurality of time steps;
• and
• operating the equipment to achieve the distribution of the predicted energy loads at each of the plurality of time steps.

A controller for equipment configured to serve energy loads, the controller comprising:

• a processing circuit configured to:
• obtain utility rate data indicating a price of one or more resources consumed by the equipment to serve the energy loads at each of a plurality of time steps of an optimization period;
• generate an objective function that expresses a total monetary cost of operating the equipment over the optimization period as a function of the utility rate data and an amount of the one or more resources consumed by the equipment to serve the energy loads at each of the plurality of time steps, wherein the objective function comprises:
• a cost vector comprising cost variables representing a monetary cost associated with each of the one or more resources consumed by the equipment to serve the energy loads at each of the plurality of time steps;
• and
• a decision matrix comprising load variables representing an energy load for each of the equipment at each of the plurality of time steps;
• optimize the objective function over the optimization period subject to load equality constraints on the equipment to determine a distribution of predicted energy loads across the equipment at each of the plurality of time steps, wherein the load equality constraints ensure that the distribution satisfies the predicted energy loads at each of the plurality of time steps and wherein determining the distribution of the predicted energy loads comprises determining values for the load variables in the decision matrix;
• and
• operate the equipment to achieve the distribution at each of the plurality of time steps.

A method for controlling equipment to serve energy loads, the method comprising:

• obtaining utility rate data indicating a price of one or more resources consumed by the equipment to serve the energy loads at each of a plurality of time steps of a time period;
• generating an objective function that expresses a total monetary cost of operating the equipment over the time period as a function of the utility rate data and an amount of the one or more resources consumed by the equipment to serve the energy loads at each of the plurality of time steps, wherein the objective function comprises:
• a cost vector comprising cost variables representing a monetary cost associated with each of the one or more resources consumed by the equipment to serve the energy loads at each of the plurality of time steps;
• and
• a decision matrix comprising load variables representing an energy load for each of the equipment at each of the plurality of time steps;
• performing an optimization of the objective function over the time period subject to load equality constraints on the equipment to determine a distribution of predicted energy loads across the equipment at each of the plurality of time steps, wherein the load equality constraints ensure that the distribution satisfies the predicted energy loads at each of the plurality of time steps and wherein determining the distribution of the predicted energy loads comprises determining values for the load variables in the decision matrix;
• and
• operating the equipment to achieve the distribution of the predicted energy loads at each of the plurality of time steps.