• Maintaining the chilled water temperature at a fixed value
• Controlling the flow-rate of the chilled water to the air-handling unit through a three way valve or a variable speed pump
• Controlling the speed of the air-blower to control the air-flow rate
• Controlling the dampers of the individual spaces to allow the necessary amount of air into each

The presently adopted methods of energy management in VAV systems involve iterative manipulation of the air and water flow rates needed to meet the comfort requirements. The iterative approach leads to a slow response. Moreover heuristics is used to set the flow and temperature levels at a given cooling load; e.g. the water flow rate is changed only when the cooling load is too low and the air flow rates cannot be reduced further. These heuristics may perform sub-optimally under particular zone and equipment characteristics.