Approximate Dynamic Programming Methods for Residential Water Heating

Files

2015-12-ms-motoki_r.pdf (3.22 MB)
2015-12-ms-motoki_uh.pdf (3.39 MB)

Date

2015-12

Authors

Contributor

Advisor

Department

Instructor

Depositor

Speaker

Researcher

Consultant

Interviewer

Narrator

Transcriber

Annotator

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

[Honolulu] : [University of Hawaii at Manoa], [December 2015]

Volume

Number/Issue

Starting Page

Ending Page

Alternative Title

Abstract

In this thesis, we address the problem of minimizing the operating cost of a residential water heater while maintaining a desired level of comfort for the customer. We state the problem as a discrete-time finite-state average cost Markov decision problem (MDP).We view hot water usage as a random process and develop a model of the water heater system. We develop approximate dynamic programming algorithms to solve the MDP. Specifically, we use aggregation to obtain a simplified, but related problem, we use density estimation to calculate transition probabilities, and we consider the Q-Learning algorithm that can be used when a model of the water heater is not known and/or the transition probabilities are not available. We prove that our algorithms can be at least as good as existing methods, in terms of minimizing the objective cost. Using numerical simulations, we evaluate our algorithms' performance. Our simulations suggest that our algorithms can decrease operating costs by about 15% while maintaining a specified level of comfort. Finally, we discuss modifications to the basic water heater optimization problem that apply to solar water heating and automated demand response.

Description

M.S. University of Hawaii at Manoa 2015.
Includes bibliographical references.

Keywords

Citation

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10125/51630

Extent

Format

Geographic Location

Time Period

Related To

Theses for the degree of Master of Science (University of Hawaii at Manoa). Electrical Engineering

Related To (URI)

Table of Contents

Rights

Rights Holder

Local Contexts

Collections

M.S. - Electrical Engineering
Email libraryada-l@lists.hawaii.edu if you need this content in ADA-compliant format.