Model-based control of absorption heat pumping devices: General approach and exemplary application to solar cooling systems

Absorption heat pumping devices (AHPDs, comprising heat pumps and chillers) can provide heating and cooling in a resource-efficient manner. However, their perceived complexity has limited their widespread application. This contribution shows how mathematical models, systematically capturing this complexity, can be used for model-based control of AHPDs (on the device-level for model-predictive or state feedback control and on the system-level for optimisation-based energy management systems) to facilitate their integration into energy systems, and discusses an exemplary application to solar cooling systems.