CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a U.S. national stage application of PCT/JP2018/024161 filed on Jun. 26, 2018, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates to an air-conditioning management apparatus that manages an operation of an air-conditioning apparatus, and an air-conditioning system.

BACKGROUND ART

Recently, concerns have been rising with respect to the effect of refrigerant for use in air-conditioning apparatuses on the environment and human bodies, and an air-conditioning apparatus has been proposed that air-conditions an indoor space by applying a heat medium, such as water, for the indoor space, without directly applying refrigerant for the indoor space (see, for example, Patent Literature 1). In Patent Literature 1, at a refrigerant-heat-medium heat exchanger, heat exchange is performed between refrigerant that flows in a refrigerant circuit and a heat medium that flows in a heat medium circuit, to thereby cool or heat the heat medium until the temperature of the heat medium reaches a desired temperature, and heat exchange is performed between the heat medium and air in the indoor space, to thereby cool or heat the indoor space.

Furthermore, in an existing air-conditioning system, time and a temperature are set in advance, to thereby perform a schedule control to cause an air-conditioning apparatus to be automatically operated. Also, in an existing technique, in a schedule control, an optimal start-up control is performed to cause an air-conditioning apparatus to be started before a previously set time, whereby the temperature of an indoor space reaches a set temperature before the set time.

CITATION LIST

Patent Literature

Patent Literature 1: International Publication No. WO 2014/128961

SUMMARY OF INVENTION

Technical Problem

In the air-conditioning apparatus disclosed in Patent Literature 1, in the case where the optimal start-up control is performed, it is important to manage the temperature of the heat medium that is applied for into the indoor space. To be more specific, the temperature of the heat medium greatly changes, for example, at a sweltering night in summer or because of a sudden temperature drop in winter. Therefore, unless the optimal start-up control is performed in consideration of the temperature of the heat medium, in some cases, it is not possible to cause the indoor space temperature to reach the set temperature before the set time.

The present disclosure is applied in view of the above, and relates to an air-conditioning management apparatus and an air-conditioning system that can prevent the temperature of the heat medium at the start time of the optimal start-up control from varying from that at one start-up time of the optimal start-up time to that at another start-up time of the optimal start-up control.

Liquid to Problem

An air-conditioning management apparatus according to an embodiment of the present disclosure controls an air-conditioning apparatus that includes: a heat source unit; one or more indoor units; and a refrigerant-heat-medium heat exchanger configured to cause heat exchange to be performed between refrigerant that flows in the heat source unit and a heat medium that flows in the one or more indoor units to heat or cool the heat medium and heat or cool an indoor space. The air-conditioning management includes: a storage unit that stores a schedule including a set time and a set temperature; a communication processing unit that communicates with the air-conditioning apparatus and receives operation status information including a heat medium temperature that is a temperature of the heat medium; and a controller that performs a schedule control to control the air-conditioning apparatus according to the schedule. The schedule control includes an optimal start-up control to control the air-conditioning apparatus such that an indoor space temperature that is a temperature of the indoor space reaches the set temperature at the set time, by starting an operation of the air-conditioning apparatus before the set time. The controller performs a preheating control or a precooling control to control the heat source unit such that before the optimal start-up control is started, the heat medium temperature included in the operation status information obtained from the air-conditioning apparatus falls within a target range including a previously set target heat medium temperature.

Advantageous Effects of Invention

According to one embodiment of the present disclosure, before the optimal start-up control is started, the preheating control or the precooling control to control the heat source unit is performed such that the heat medium temperature falls within the target range including the previously set target heat medium temperature. Thus, it is possible to prevent the temperature of the heat medium at the start time of the optimal start-up control from varying from that at one start-up time of the optimal start-up time to that at another start-up time of the optimal start-up control.

