Owing to the call for energy efficiency, the need to optimize the energy consumption of commercial buildings-- responsible for over 40% of US energy consumption--has recently gained significant attention. Moreover, the ability to participate in the retail electricity markets through proactive demand-side participation has recently led to development of economic model predictive control (EMPC) for buildings Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system. The objective of this paper is to develop a price-sensitive operational model for buildings HVAC systems while considering inflexible loads and other distributed energy resources (DERs) such as photovoltaic (PV) generation and battery storage for the buildings. A Nonlinear Economic Model Predictive Controller (NL-EMPC) is presented to minimize the net cost of energy usage by buildings HVAC system while satisfying the comfort-level of buildings occupants. The efficiency of the proposed NL-EMPC controller is evaluated using several simulation case studies.
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