An optimization system for a central plant configured to serve building energy loads, the optimization system comprising: a load/rate prediction module configured to use feedback from a building automation system to predict building energy loads for a plurality of time steps in an optimization period, the feedback from the building automation system comprising input from one or more sensors configured to monitor conditions within a controlled building; a processing circuit configured to receive utility rate data indicating a price of one or more resources consumed by equipment of the central plant to serve the predicted building energy loads at each of the plurality of time steps; a high level optimization module configured to generate an objective function that expresses a total monetary cost of operating the central plant over the optimization period as a function of the utility rate data and an amount of the one or more resources consumed by the central plant equipment at each of the plurality of time steps; and a low level optimization module configured to generate a subplant curve for a subplant of the central plant by optimizing an amount of resource consumption by the subplant for several different combinations of thermal energy load and weather conditions, the subplant curve indicating a minimum amount of resource consumption by the subplant as a function of a thermal energy load on the subplant; wherein the high level optimization module is configured to receive the subplant curve for the subplant from the low level optimization module, formulate load equality constraints and optimize the objective function over the optimization period subject to the load equality constraints and capacity constraints on the central plant equipment to determine an optimal distribution of the predicted building energy loads over multiple groups of the central plant equipment at each of the plurality of time steps, wherein the load equality constraints ensure that the optimal distribution satisfies the predicted building energy loads at each of the plurality of time steps. a load/rate prediction module configured to use feedback from a building automation system to predict building energy loads for a plurality of time steps in an optimization period, the feedback from the building automation system comprising input from one or more sensors configured to monitor conditions within a controlled building; a processing circuit configured to receive utility rate data indicating a price of one or more resources consumed by equipment of the central plant to serve the predicted building energy loads at each of the plurality of time steps; a high level optimization module configured to generate an objective function that expresses a total monetary cost of operating the central plant over the optimization period as a function of the utility rate data and an amount of the one or more resources consumed by the central plant equipment at each of the plurality of time steps; and a low level optimization module configured to generate a subplant curve for a subplant of the central plant by optimizing an amount of resource consumption by the subplant for several different combinations of thermal energy load and weather conditions, the subplant curve indicating a minimum amount of resource consumption by the subplant as a function of a thermal energy load on the subplant; wherein the high level optimization module is configured to receive the subplant curve for the subplant from the low level optimization module, formulate load equality constraints and optimize the objective function over the optimization period subject to the load equality constraints and capacity constraints on the central plant equipment to determine an optimal distribution of the predicted building energy loads over multiple groups of the central plant equipment at each of the plurality of time steps, wherein the load equality constraints ensure that the optimal distribution satisfies the predicted building energy loads at each of the plurality of time steps.