Deploying advanced supervisory control strategies to small- and medium-sized commercial buildings: Case study and lessons learned

Mingyue Guo; Boming Liu; Sen Huang; Jin Dong; Jianming Lian; Zheng O'Neill

doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2025.115710

Deploying advanced supervisory control strategies to small- and medium-sized commercial buildings: Case study and lessons learned

Mingyue Guo, Boming Liu, Sen Huang, Jin Dong, Jianming Lian, Zheng O'Neill

Grid-Interactive Controls

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Deploying advanced supervisory control strategies (ASCSs) in small- and medium-sized commercial buildings (SMBs) is vital but faces two issues: (1) a lack of building control and communication infrastructure (BCCI) in SMBs and (2) the significant engineering efforts required to implement and configurate ASCSs. Despite hindering the large-scale adoption of ASCSs in SMBs, these issues have not been adequately explored in the literature, which tends to focus more on feasibility than scalability. This paper provides a comprehensive evaluation of these two issues through a case study of an occupied SMB in eastern Tennessee of the United States. Specifically, we design and implement a BCCI for the studied building with commercial off-the-shelf products to accommodate the needs for deploying ASCSs. We then deploy two ASCSs—a rule-based setback control and a model predictive control (MPC)—with the BCCI and evaluate their performance throughout the summer of 2024. This study reveals that the main bottlenecks in establishing BCCIs for SMBs are the high initial cost (∼$56/m²) and communication delays (up to 9 min). Additionally, the assessment of the two ASCSs indicates that the majority (∼75 %) of the engineering effort required for implementation and configuration is spent on model identification, debugging, and tuning.

Original language	English
Article number	115710
Journal	Energy and Buildings
Volume	338
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2025.115710
State	Published - Jul 1 2025

Funding

Notice: This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle LLC under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (https://www.energy.gov/doe-public-access-plan).This research was supported in part by an appointment to the Education Collaboration Program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle LLC under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (https://www.energy.gov/doe-public-access-plan).This research was supported in part by an appointment to the Education Collaboration Program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education.

Keywords

Advanced supervisory control strategies
Field test
Model predictive control
Setback
Small- and medium-sized commercial buildings

Access to Document

10.1016/j.enbuild.2025.115710

Cite this

@article{6685320c20bf48afb43b60023ebec9cf,

title = "Deploying advanced supervisory control strategies to small- and medium-sized commercial buildings: Case study and lessons learned",

abstract = "Deploying advanced supervisory control strategies (ASCSs) in small- and medium-sized commercial buildings (SMBs) is vital but faces two issues: (1) a lack of building control and communication infrastructure (BCCI) in SMBs and (2) the significant engineering efforts required to implement and configurate ASCSs. Despite hindering the large-scale adoption of ASCSs in SMBs, these issues have not been adequately explored in the literature, which tends to focus more on feasibility than scalability. This paper provides a comprehensive evaluation of these two issues through a case study of an occupied SMB in eastern Tennessee of the United States. Specifically, we design and implement a BCCI for the studied building with commercial off-the-shelf products to accommodate the needs for deploying ASCSs. We then deploy two ASCSs—a rule-based setback control and a model predictive control (MPC)—with the BCCI and evaluate their performance throughout the summer of 2024. This study reveals that the main bottlenecks in establishing BCCIs for SMBs are the high initial cost (∼\$56/m2) and communication delays (up to 9 min). Additionally, the assessment of the two ASCSs indicates that the majority (∼75 \%) of the engineering effort required for implementation and configuration is spent on model identification, debugging, and tuning.",

keywords = "Advanced supervisory control strategies, Field test, Model predictive control, Setback, Small- and medium-sized commercial buildings",

author = "Mingyue Guo and Boming Liu and Sen Huang and Jin Dong and Jianming Lian and Zheng O'Neill",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2025 Elsevier B.V.",

year = "2025",

month = jul,

day = "1",

doi = "10.1016/j.enbuild.2025.115710",

language = "English",

volume = "338",

journal = "Energy and Buildings",

issn = "0378-7788",

publisher = "Elsevier",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Deploying advanced supervisory control strategies to small- and medium-sized commercial buildings

T2 - Case study and lessons learned

AU - Guo, Mingyue

AU - Liu, Boming

AU - Huang, Sen

AU - Dong, Jin

AU - Lian, Jianming

AU - O'Neill, Zheng

PY - 2025/7/1

Y1 - 2025/7/1

N2 - Deploying advanced supervisory control strategies (ASCSs) in small- and medium-sized commercial buildings (SMBs) is vital but faces two issues: (1) a lack of building control and communication infrastructure (BCCI) in SMBs and (2) the significant engineering efforts required to implement and configurate ASCSs. Despite hindering the large-scale adoption of ASCSs in SMBs, these issues have not been adequately explored in the literature, which tends to focus more on feasibility than scalability. This paper provides a comprehensive evaluation of these two issues through a case study of an occupied SMB in eastern Tennessee of the United States. Specifically, we design and implement a BCCI for the studied building with commercial off-the-shelf products to accommodate the needs for deploying ASCSs. We then deploy two ASCSs—a rule-based setback control and a model predictive control (MPC)—with the BCCI and evaluate their performance throughout the summer of 2024. This study reveals that the main bottlenecks in establishing BCCIs for SMBs are the high initial cost (∼$56/m2) and communication delays (up to 9 min). Additionally, the assessment of the two ASCSs indicates that the majority (∼75 %) of the engineering effort required for implementation and configuration is spent on model identification, debugging, and tuning.

AB - Deploying advanced supervisory control strategies (ASCSs) in small- and medium-sized commercial buildings (SMBs) is vital but faces two issues: (1) a lack of building control and communication infrastructure (BCCI) in SMBs and (2) the significant engineering efforts required to implement and configurate ASCSs. Despite hindering the large-scale adoption of ASCSs in SMBs, these issues have not been adequately explored in the literature, which tends to focus more on feasibility than scalability. This paper provides a comprehensive evaluation of these two issues through a case study of an occupied SMB in eastern Tennessee of the United States. Specifically, we design and implement a BCCI for the studied building with commercial off-the-shelf products to accommodate the needs for deploying ASCSs. We then deploy two ASCSs—a rule-based setback control and a model predictive control (MPC)—with the BCCI and evaluate their performance throughout the summer of 2024. This study reveals that the main bottlenecks in establishing BCCIs for SMBs are the high initial cost (∼$56/m2) and communication delays (up to 9 min). Additionally, the assessment of the two ASCSs indicates that the majority (∼75 %) of the engineering effort required for implementation and configuration is spent on model identification, debugging, and tuning.

KW - Advanced supervisory control strategies

KW - Field test

KW - Model predictive control

KW - Setback

KW - Small- and medium-sized commercial buildings

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105002869353

U2 - 10.1016/j.enbuild.2025.115710

DO - 10.1016/j.enbuild.2025.115710

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:105002869353

SN - 0378-7788

VL - 338

JO - Energy and Buildings

JF - Energy and Buildings

M1 - 115710

ER -

Deploying advanced supervisory control strategies to small- and medium-sized commercial buildings: Case study and lessons learned

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this