Incorporating a load change penalty in central plant optimization

A method for incorporating a load change penalty in an optimization process for a central plant, the method comprising:

• receiving, at a processing circuit of a central plant optimization system, load prediction data indicating building energy loads for a plurality of time steps in an optimization period and utility rate data indicating a price of one or more resources consumed by equipment of the central plant to serve the building energy loads at each of the plurality of time steps;
• generating, by a high level optimization module of the central plant optimization system, an objective function that expresses a total monetary cost of operating the central plant over the optimization period as a function of the utility rate data and an amount of the one or more resources consumed by multiple groups of the central plant equipment at each of the plurality of time steps;
• optimizing, by the high level optimization module, the objective function over the optimization period subject to a set of constraints to determine an optimal amount of the building energy loads assigned to each of the groups of central plant equipment at each of the plurality of time steps;
• and
• modifying, by a load change penalty module of the central plant optimization system, the objective function to account for a load change penalty resulting from a change in the amount of the building energy loads assigned to one or more of the groups of central plant equipment.