Achieving a synergy by combining air conditioners and photovoltaic panels: an evolutionary-algorithm approach

Air conditioning is responsible for up to 60% of energy use in commercial buildings and is rapidly increasing in the residential sector. This paper models a group of air-conditioned rooms, whose air conditioners (ACs) are partly powered by photovoltaic (PV) panels. A multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA) is used to quantify trade-offs amongst peak demand, energy cost and thermal comfort and how those trade-offs change when the air conditioners are coordinated in order to work in awareness of the renewable generation. We model and study a scenario with 8 air conditioners connected to different configurations of photovoltaic panels and compare our findings against the case of having all ACs working independently, irrespective of the renewable generation.