Publications
Showing 86 results for Author: Helia Zandi
Nov, 2023
ORNL Report
Impact of Connected Communities
Impacts of the Connected Communities projects in Alabama and Georgia are outlined including: energy, grid services and data management learnings; homeowner feedback; vendor engagement; adoption by utilities; technical, policy and business model challenges.
Nov, 2023
Conference Paper
Comparative analysis of model-free and model-based HVAC control for residential demand response
In this paper, we present a comparative analysis of model-free reinforcement learning (RL) and model predictive control (MPC) approaches for intelligent control of heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC). Deep-Q-network (DQN) is used as a candidate for model-free RL algorithm. The two control strategies were developed for residential demand-response (DR) HVAC sys…
Nov, 2023
Conference Paper
Deep Reinforcement Learning Based Smart Water Heater Control for Reducing Electricity Consumption and Carbon Emission
Water heating is the third largest electricity consumer in U.S. households, after space heating and cooling. Thus, water heaters represent a significant potential for reducing electricity consumption and associated CO2 emissions of residential buildings. To this end, this study proposes a model-free deep reinforcement learning (RL) approach that aims to minimize the electr…
Nov, 2023
Conference Paper
Hybrid Heat Pump Controls: Conventional Dual Fuel versus Seamlessly Fuel Flexible Heat Pump
This paper compares the performance of a novel seamlessly fuel flexible heat pump (SFFHP) and conventional dual fuel heat pump (DFHP) for space heating. The conventional dual fuel systems either run on the gas furnace or electric heat pump at any given moment, as a comparison, the proposed seamlessly fuel flexible heat pump simultaneously consumes gas and electricity by co…
Nov, 2023
Conference Paper
Seamlessly Fuel Flexible Heat Pump with Optimal Model-based Control Strategies to Reduce Peak Demand, Utility Cost and CO2 Emission
This research develops a novel hybrid fuel heat pump system for space heating of residential and small commercial buildings with built-in optimization and control. Whereas conventional dual fuel systems either run on gas or electricity at any given moment, the proposed seamlessly fuel flexible heat pump (SFFHP) simultaneously consumes gas and electricity and continuously o…
Nov, 2023
Conference Paper
Cyber Framework for Steering and Measurements Collection Over Instrument-Computing Ecosystems
We propose a framework to develop cyber solutions to support the remote steering of science instruments and measurements collection over instrument-computing ecosystems. It is based on provisioning separate data and control connections at the network level, and developing software modules consisting of Python wrappers for instrument commands and Pyro server-client codes th…
Nov, 2023
Conference Paper
Deep Reinforcement Learning based HVAC Control for Reducing Carbon Footprint of Buildings
In this paper, we present our work on deep reinforcement learning (DRL) based intelligent control of Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) with the goal of reducing carbon emission. We performed this task using 1) Marginal Operating Emission Rates (MOER), where the objective was to shift the demand to the low emission period of the day and 2) Time-Of-Use (TOU)…