Build a District Cooling Thermal Energy Storage Night-Chilling Optimizer
Model district cooling plant chiller load shifting and stratified thermal storage tank charging during off-peak night hours. Reduce peak-demand electrical charges while guaranteeing daytime cooling tonnage.
What you are building
The core problem, expected build, and operating context for this challenge.
Model district cooling plant chiller load shifting and stratified thermal storage tank charging during off-peak night hours. Reduce peak-demand electrical charges while guaranteeing daytime cooling tonnage.
District Cooling Operations Lead
Ingest commercial customer cooling load forecasts and thermal energy storage (TES) state-of-charge.
Retrieve time-differentiated electricity tariffs and chiller coefficient-of-performance curves.
Formulate optimal nocturnal TES charging sequences using building energy balance principles from EnergyPlus.
Produce verified chiller staging plans and thermal reserve reports for operational shift sign-off.
A real-time plant load balancing dashboard showing TES thermocline levels, chiller staging Gantt charts, and demand tariff cost deltas.
Synthesize 24-hour district cooling demand profiles (ton-hours), TES tank capacity limits, and utility tariff rate tables in JSON. Starter examples below are synthetic. They are not downloaded records.
EnergyPlus Employs EnergyPlus chilled water loop and thermal storage tank energy balance conventions to model charging and discharging dynamics.
dspy, pydantic, fastapi. Compiles and optimizes structured prompt-based reasoning for complex thermodynamic scheduling decisions under tariff constraints. Local or hosted LLM with strong math reasoning capabilities for validating thermal balance calculations.
Submit runnable source, pinned dependencies, setup commands, a working interface, example outputs, and a recorded end-to-end demo. Include tests and an action log.
Maintains TES state-of-charge within safe operating bounds without overcharging.
Demonstrates load shifting away from designated peak electrical tariff hours.
Outputs hourly chiller stage assignments and expected peak demand cost reductions.
Enforces mandatory engineering review check prior to transmitting setpoints to plant operators.
```json [ { "input": { "plant_id": "DCP-MARINA", "tes_capacity_ton_hours": 20000, "initial_tes_storage_ton_hours": 4000, "max_charge_rate_tons": 2500, "forecast_peak_cooling_demand_tons": 8000, "chiller_base_capacity_tons": 6000, "off_peak_hours": [ 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ] }, "expected_output": { "recommended_night_charge_ton_hours": 15000, "projected_peak_coverage_deficit_tons": 0, "chiller_night_utilization_ratio": 0.83, "peak_shaving_feasible": true, "status": "APPROVED_FOR_REVIEW" } }, { "input": { "plant_id": "DCP-MARINA", "tes_capacity_ton_hours": 10000, "initial_tes_storage_ton_hours": 1000, "max_charge_rate_tons": 1000, "forecast_peak_cooling_demand_tons": 9000, "chiller_base_capacity_tons": 6000, "off_peak_hours": [ 2, 3, 4 ] }, "expected_output": { "recommended_night_charge_ton_hours": 3000, "projected_peak_coverage_deficit_tons": 2000, "chiller_night_utilization_ratio": 1, "peak_shaving_feasible": false, "status": "SUPPLEMENTAL_CHILLER_REQUIRED" } } ] ```
Generates advisory scheduling proposals; thermal setpoints require confirmation by qualified plant shift engineers. Use mock external writes. Require human review before any real deployment.
Participation guide
Generates advisory scheduling proposals; thermal setpoints require confirmation by qualified plant shift engineers. Use mock external writes and human review.
How work is evaluated
Maintains TES state-of-charge within safe operating bounds without overcharging. Demonstrates load shifting away from designated peak electrical tariff hours. Outputs hourly chiller stage assignments and expected peak demand cost reductions. Enforces mandatory engineering review check prior to transmitting setpoints to plant operators.
Runnable source, pinned dependencies, setup commands, working interface, example outputs, recorded demo, tests, and action logs.
Challenge datasets
Public datasets, plus the private datasets you have access to.
How submissions are scored
These dimensions define what the evaluator checks and which criteria separate a passable run from a strong one.
Complete workflow
Ingest commercial customer cooling load forecasts and thermal energy storage (TES) state-of-charge. Retrieve time-differentiated electricity tariffs and chiller coefficient-of-performance curves. Formulate optimal nocturnal TES charging sequences using building energy balance principles from EnergyPlus. Produce verified chiller staging plans and thermal reserve reports for operational shift sign-off.
Missing or incorrect.
Partly complete, with documented gaps.
Complete, with reproducible evidence.
Correctness and evidence
Maintains TES state-of-charge within safe operating bounds without overcharging. Demonstrates load shifting away from designated peak electrical tariff hours. Outputs hourly chiller stage assignments and expected peak demand cost reductions. Enforces mandatory engineering review check prior to transmitting setpoints to plant operators.
Missing or incorrect.
Partly complete, with documented gaps.
Complete, with reproducible evidence.
Review interface
A real-time plant load balancing dashboard showing TES thermocline levels, chiller staging Gantt charts, and demand tariff cost deltas.
Missing or incorrect.
Partly complete, with documented gaps.
Complete, with reproducible evidence.
Safe execution
Generates advisory scheduling proposals; thermal setpoints require confirmation by qualified plant shift engineers.
This dimension contributes its full weight only when the submission satisfies the requirement. Partial credit is not awarded.
What you should walk away with
Ingest commercial customer cooling load forecasts and thermal energy storage (TES) state-of-charge.
Retrieve time-differentiated electricity tariffs and chiller coefficient-of-performance curves.
Formulate optimal nocturnal TES charging sequences using building energy balance principles from EnergyPlus.
Produce verified chiller staging plans and thermal reserve reports for operational shift sign-off.
Reference links and supporting material
Synthesize 24-hour district cooling demand profiles (ton-hours), TES tank capacity limits, and utility tariff rate tables in JSON. Supplied starter examples are synthetic, not source extracts.
Challenge setup
Configuration summary for this challenge.
Challenge input
Input details are not configured.
DSPy
Prompt and LM program optimization framework.
Evaluated output
No output checks are configured.
- Ingest commercial customer cooling load forecasts and thermal energy storage (TES) state-of-charge. Retriev...
- Maintains TES state-of-charge within safe operating bounds without overcharging. Demonstrates load shifting...
- A real-time plant load balancing dashboard showing TES thermocline levels, chiller staging Gantt charts, an...
- 2 public reference cases
- 3 configured tools
Summary shows the first task, up to three tools, and up to three evidence items. Open the technical recipe to view all configured items.
View technical recipe
Configured tools
- DSPy · Optional
- DSPy · Optional
- DSPy · Optional
Evaluation contract
- Complete workflow · Weight 40
- Correctness and evidence · Weight 30
- Review interface · Weight 20
- Safe execution · Weight 10
Reference cases
- 2 public reference cases
Workflow tasks
No workflow tasks are configured.
Recipe freeze marker
No recipe freeze time is recorded.