Patent Document ID: 9915178
Application ID: 14382378
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method of real-time optimization for a Combined Cooling, Heating and Power system, the method being implemented with a computing system having at least one processor coupled with memory-stored executable instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform the method, comprising: determining a first operation sequence of a plurality of chillers and at least one thermal energy storage tank in the system over a time period during which the at least one thermal energy storage tank is in a charging mode; and determining a second operation sequence of the plurality of chillers and the at least one thermal energy storage tank in the system over the time period by using the first operation sequence as input to a greedy algorithm, wherein the second operation sequence comprises a plurality of optimal set-points during the first time period for the plurality of chillers and the at least one thermal energy storage tank such that a temperature of the at least one thermal energy storage tank drops to a target temperature at conclusion of the time period, wherein determining the second operation sequence comprises: generating a baseline solution by operating the plurality of chillers and the at least one thermal energy storage tank over the time period such that cooling provided by the plurality of chillers is maximized but less than a cooling demand, wherein a remainder of the cooling demand is met by the thermal energy storage tank; and iteratively selecting different chiller configurations for different portions of the time period, wherein each chiller configuration comprises a reduction in an amount of cooling provided by a different chiller of the plurality of chillers, wherein the at least one thermal energy storage tank provides the amount of cooling that is reduced, and wherein an alternative chiller configuration having a higher relative efficiency gain than a current chiller configuration is selected for each successive iteration.