Investigation of the effect of the envelope on building thermal storage performance under model predictive control by dynamic pricing

Dynamic pricing is designed for the load shaping to help match the amount of the energy demand to the energy supply capacity. Since the buildings’ characteristics influence the performance of the energy shifting, renovation of the building towards a higher energy flexibility is worth investigating. This study evaluated the effect of the envelope on building thermal storage performance. A model predictive control (MPC) was developed to achieve a multi-objective control i.e., indoor comfort temperature and minimise the total energy cost. MPC automatically triggered the energy storage during the low price periods and used the stored energy during the high price periods. The results confirmed the ability of MPC on peak demand reduction up to 45% electricity cost. Besides, the results also demonstrated the ability of heavyweight thermal mass in terms of reducing energy consumption and shifting a greater high price energy to the low price times. Therefore, adding insulation layers into the lightweight thermal mass is highly recommended, especially for the places experiencing the significant mismatch between the demand and supply during daily peaks or the areas scheduling a large amount of intermittent renewable energy source in the energy production. [Display omitted] •A coupled TRNSYS and MATLAB model was performed to simulate Structural Thermal Energy Storage (STES).•Model Predictive Control (MPC) control strategy can automatically shift the peak demand to off peak times.•The heavyweight thermal mass has a longer discharge time than the lightweight thermal mass.•The heavyweight thermal mass could use a higher portion of low-price electricity than the lightweight thermal mass.