Simulative study of a novel fuzzy demand controlled ventilation for façade-integrated decentralized systems in renovated residential buildings

Decentralized mechanical ventilation systems had a sustainable growth in the past ten years in order to guarantee air exchange in highly airtight renovated residential buildings. Smart control strategies could provide a solution to the tradeoff between energy efficiency, hygrothermal comfort and indoor air quality. In this paper, a novel fuzzy demand controlled ventilation strategy is proposed, using state-of-the-art sensors often available in ventilation systems. The proposed controller is tested using a co-simulation approach and is compared to other typical mechanical ventilation control strategies. Results show that this approach provides around 25% energy savings in comparison to a constant airflow strategy, and around 12% against typical smart ventilation systems. The obtained differences regarding hygrothermal comfort and indoor air quality are negligible, and the proposed controller succeeds on keeping the indoor environment in the acceptable range. Finally, the developed fuzzy controller could potentially allow control systems to adapt to different occupant preferences, by tailoring the membership functions to each user.