Building energy management represents a significant opportunity for quantum computing applications, yet a fundamental deployment challenge has limited adoption: controllers trained on inaccurate thermal models can appear safe in simulation but violate occupant comfort in actual buildings. This model-reality gap poses unacceptable risk in mission-critical facilities where thermal performance directly affects occupant safety and satisfaction.
Researchers have introduced Q-DASC (Discrepancy-Attributed Safe Quantum Control), a framework that combines variational quantum circuit policies with a certified classical safety layer. The approach systematically identifies operating regimes where the thermal model fails locally, applies statistical repair techniques to thermal gain parameters, and projects quantum-derived HVAC schedules onto feasible regions that guarantee comfort constraints.
Testing across three building emulators with intentional localized model misspecifications revealed dramatic improvements. The raw quantum controller produced 26% comfort violations, while a model-trusting scheduler reached 55.3%. With Q-DASC's safety wrapper, violations dropped to 0.02%—effectively matching an oracle controller with perfect knowledge. Importantly, these guarantees held even under realistic quantum hardware constraints, including finite-shot readout and depolarizing noise, where violations increased modestly to 0.24%.
The framework's flexibility extends beyond simulation. Q-DASC successfully transferred to the EnergyPlus benchmark platform and demonstrated real-world applicability using hospital air-handling-unit data. A variant prioritizing repair-aware VQC training achieved zero violations while reducing classical projection interventions.
This work addresses a critical bottleneck for quantum computing in building automation: deploying learned policies without sacrificing safety margins. By decomposing errors into policy failure, model inadequacy, and physical constraints, Q-DASC enables interpretable, certified quantum control. For power system operators managing building loads or district energy systems, this framework offers a pathway to leverage quantum advantages while maintaining the rigorous safety standards required in operations.
