Use of optimization tools in the management of air conditioning units to reduce electricity consumption

Abstract

The optimization applied in the industry allows to improve the use of services such as water, electricity, gas, and heating, thus achieving a better production and a reduction of costs. With this, an autonomous, dynamic, adaptive, and interconnected network is achieved, which facilitates new scenarios of use and benefits. Today, a large part of companies has air conditioning units to maintain a suitable temperature for employees and equipment, seeking a good performance. However, the uncontrolled use of these devices leads to high electricity consumption, which often results in a large portion of the monthly expenses of these companies. The objective of this work is to propose a system based on information and communication technologies (ICTs) to adequately control the operation time of air conditioning units to reduce total electricity consumption in companies that have equipment that requires special environmental conditions, for example, telecommunications and data storage equipment. This problem is formulated as a convex optimization problem, the optimal solution of which is obtained using the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) method. Based on this optimal solution, an algorithm is proposed, which was validated using the MATLAB design and simulation software. The results show that the proposed optimization technique helps to improve the performance of the air conditioning units, by achieving better electricity consumption, greater efficiency and useful life of the equipment and a reduction in the cost of production.