A Probabilistic Algorithm for Predictive Control With Full-Complexity Models in Non-Residential Buildings

Despite the increasing capabilities of information technologies for data acquisition and processing, building energy management systems still require manual configuration and supervision to achieve optimal performance. Model predictive control (MPC) aims to leverage equipment control-particularly heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC)-by using a model of the building to capture its dynamic characteristics and to predict its response to alternative control scenarios. Usually, MPC approaches are based on simplified linear models, which support faster computation but also present some limitations regarding interpretability, solution diversification, and longer-term optimization. In this paper, we propose a novel MPC algorithm that uses a full-complexity grey-box simulation model to optimize HVAC operation in non-residential buildings. Our system generates hundreds of candidate operation plans, typically for the next day, and evaluates them in terms of consumption and comfort by means of a parallel simulator configured according to the expected building conditions (weather and occupancy). The system has been implemented and tested in an office building in Helsinki, both in a simulated environment and in the real building, yielding energy savings around 35% during the intermediate winter season and 20% in the whole winter season with respect to the current operation of the heating equipment.This work was supported in part by the Universidad de Granada under Grant P9-2014-ING, in part by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities under Grant TIN2017-91223-EXP, in part by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under Grant TIN2015-64776-C3-1-R, and in part by the European Union (Energy IN TIME EeB.NMP.2013-4), under Grant 608981

The State of the Art in Model Predictive Control Application for Demand Response

Demand response programs have been used to optimize the participation of the demand side. Utilizing the demand response programs maximizes social welfare and reduces energy usage. Model Predictive Control is a suitable control strategy that manages the energy network, and it shows superiority over other predictive controllers. The goal of implementing this controller on the demand side is to minimize energy consumption, carbon footprint, and energy cost and maximize thermal comfort and social welfare.  This review paper aims to highlight this control strategy\u27s excellence in handling the demand response optimization problem. The optimization methods of the controller are compared. Summarization of techniques used in recent publications to solve the Model Predictive Control optimization problem is presented, including demand response programs, renewable energy resources, and thermal comfort. This paper sheds light on the current research challenges and future research directions for applying model-based control techniques to the demand response optimization problem

An ensemble model for predictive energy performance:Closing the gap between actual and predicted energy use in residential buildings

The design stage of a building plays a pivotal role in influencing its life cycle and overall performance. Accurate predictions of a building's performance are crucial for informed decision-making, particularly in terms of energy performance, given the escalating global awareness of climate change and the imperative to enhance energy efficiency in buildings. However, a well-documented energy performance gap persists between actual and predicted energy consumption, primarily attributed to the unpredictable nature of occupant behavior.Existing methodologies for predicting and simulating occupant behavior in buildings frequently neglect or exclusively concentrate on particular behaviors, resulting in uncertainties in energy performance predictions. Machine learning approaches have exhibited increased accuracy in predicting occupant energy behavior, yet the majority of extant studies focus on specific behavior types rather than investigating the interactions among all contributing factors. This dissertation delves into the building energy performance gap, with a particular emphasis on the influence of occupants on energy performance. A comprehensive literature review scrutinizes machine learning models employed for predicting occupants' behavior in buildings and assesses their performance. The review uncovers knowledge gaps, as most studies are case-specific and lack a consolidated database to examine diverse behaviors across various building types.An ensemble model integrating occupant behavior parameters is devised to enhance the accuracy of energy performance predictions in residential buildings. Multiple algorithms are examined, with the selection of algorithms contingent upon evaluation metrics. The ensemble model is validated through a case study that compares actual energy consumption with the predictions of the ensemble model and an EnergyPlus simulation that takes occupant behavior factors into account.The findings demonstrate that the ensemble model provides considerably more accurate predictions of actual energy consumption compared to the EnergyPlus simulation. This dissertation also addresses the research limitations, including the reusability of the model and the requirement for additional datasets to bolster confidence in the model's applicability across diverse building types and occupant behavior patterns.In summary, this dissertation presents an ensemble model that endeavors to bridge the gap between actual and predicted energy usage in residential buildings by incorporating occupant behavior parameters, leading to more precise energy performance predictions and promoting superior energy management strategies

AI based residential load forecasting

The increasing levels of energy consumption worldwide is raising issues with respect to surpassing supply limits, causing severe effects on the environment, and the exhaustion of energy resources. Buildings are one of the most relevant sectors in terms of energy consumption in the world. Many researches have been carried out in the recent years with primary concentration on efficient Home or Building Management Systems. In addition, by increasing renewable energy penetration, modern power grids demand more accurate consumption predictions to provide the optimized power supply which is stochastic in nature. This study will present an analytic comparison of day-ahead load forecasting during a period of two years by applying AI based data driven models. The unit of analysis in this thesis project is based on households smart meter data in England. The collected and collated data for this study includes historical electricity consumption of 75 houses over two years of 2012 to 2014 city of London. Predictive models divided in two main forecasting groups of deterministic and probabilistic forecasting. In deterministic step, Random Forest Regression and MLP Regression employed to make a forecasting models. In the probabilistic phase,DeepAR, FFNN and Gaussian Process Estimator were employed to predict days ahead load forecasting. The models are trained based on subset of various groups of customers with registered diversified load volatility level. Daily weather data are also added as new feature in this study into subset to check model sensitivity to external factors and validate the performance of the model. The results of implemented models are evaluated by well-known error metrics as RMSE,MAE, MSE and CRPS separately for each phase of this study. The findings of this master thesis study shows that the Deep Learning methods of FNN, DeepAR and MLP compared to other utilized methods like Random Forest and Gaussian provide better data prediction reslts in terms of less deviance to real load trend, lower forecasting error and computation time. Considering probabilistic forecasting methods it is observed that DeepAR can provide better results than FFNN and Gaussian Process model. Although the computation time of FFNN was lower than other

Forecast-informed power load profiling: A novel approach

Power load forecasting plays a critical role in the context of electric supply optimization. The concept ofload characterization and profiling has been used in the past as a valuable approach to improve forecasting performance as well as problem interpretability. This paper proposes a novel, fully fledged theoretical framework for a joint probabilistic clustering andregression model, which is different from existing models that treat both processes independently. The clustering process is enhanced by simultaneously using the input data and the prediction targets during training. The model is thus capable of obtaining better clusters than other methods, leading to more informativedata profiles, while maintaining or improving predictive performance. Experiments have been conducted using aggregated load data from two U.S.A. regional transmission organizations, collected over 8 years. These experiments confirm that the proposed model achieves the goalsset for interpretability and forecasting performance.This work is partially supported by the National Science Foundation EPSCoR Cooperative Agreement OIA-1757207 and the SpanishMINECO grants TEC2014-52289-R and TEC2017-83838-R

A three-stage optimization methodology for envelope design of passive house considering energy demand, thermal comfort and cost

Due to reducing the reliance of buildings on fossil fuels, Passive House (PH) is receiving more and more attention. It is important that integrated optimization of passive performance by considering energy demand, cost and thermal comfort. This paper proposed a set three-stage multi-objective optimization method that combines redundancy analysis (RDA), Gradient Boosted Decision Trees (GBDT) and Non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) for PH design. The method has strong engineering applicability, by reducing the model complexity and improving efficiency. Among then, the GBDT algorithm was first applied to the passive performance optimization of buildings, which is used to build meta-models of building performance. Compared with the commonly used meta-model, the proposed models demonstrate superior robustness with the standard deviation at 0.048. The optimization results show that the energy-saving rate is about 88.2% and the improvement of thermal comfort is about 37.8% as compared to the base-case building. The economic analysis, the payback period were used to integrate initial investment and operating costs, the minimum payback period and uncomfortable level of Pareto frontier solution are 0.48 years and 13.1%, respectively. This study provides the architects rich and valuable information about the effects of the parameters on the different building performance

A novel improved model for building energy consumption prediction based on model integration

Building energy consumption prediction plays an irreplaceable role in energy planning, management, and conservation. Constantly improving the performance of prediction models is the key to ensuring the efficient operation of energy systems. Moreover, accuracy is no longer the only factor in revealing model performance, it is more important to evaluate the model from multiple perspectives, considering the characteristics of engineering applications. Based on the idea of model integration, this paper proposes a novel improved integration model (stacking model) that can be used to forecast building energy consumption. The stacking model combines advantages of various base prediction algorithms and forms them into “meta-features” to ensure that the final model can observe datasets from different spatial and structural angles. Two cases are used to demonstrate practical engineering applications of the stacking model. A comparative analysis is performed to evaluate the prediction performance of the stacking model in contrast with existing well-known prediction models including Random Forest, Gradient Boosted Decision Tree, Extreme Gradient Boosting, Support Vector Machine, and K-Nearest Neighbor. The results indicate that the stacking method achieves better performance than other models, regarding accuracy (improvement of 9.5%–31.6% for Case A and 16.2%–49.4% for Case B), generalization (improvement of 6.7%–29.5% for Case A and 7.1%-34.6% for Case B), and robustness (improvement of 1.5%–34.1% for Case A and 1.8%–19.3% for Case B). The proposed model enriches the diversity of algorithm libraries of empirical models