  A novel centralized model predictive control (MPC) is proposed for comfort
and energy management in a residential building. The residential setup used
here is equipped with a photovoltaic (PV) solar system and a stationary home
battery unit. An air-to-air multi-split heat pump (HP) is used as the primary
heating system. The electric baseboard (BB) unit in each zone is used as a
secondary system. The MPC is simultaneously responsible for controlling the
heating inputs of the HP and BB units for comfort management, as well as for
the control of energy flow between the PV, the home battery and the
bidirectional grid system. Variable Time-of-Use (ToU) rates are considered for
the energy cost calculation and Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) is considered for selling
energy to the grid. A 13.5% reduction in the energy cost is achieved with the
centralized MPC as compared to a rule based energy management strategy. The
solar energy generation and battery storage contribute to approximately 31%
saving.
