Machine Learning Models for Energy Prediction in a Low Carbon Building

Abstract

Abstract Globally, buildings are responsible for an estimated 40% of energy consumption and 33% of CO2 emissions. In a bid to reduce CO2 emissions and hence, global warming, it has become necessary to ensure the energy efficient construction and operation of buildings. Understanding how a building utilises energy is a critical step to increase its efficiency. In this study, we leverage on an open-source data obtained from UCI data repository. Exploratory data analysis and feature engineering were used to eliminate non-contributing features while identifying key attributes of the data for model training. Linear Regression (LR) and Support Vector Regression (SVR) were employed as the machine learning techniques for the study. The models were trained using a repeated cross-validation technique. The models’ performance was evaluated on an independent data set segregated for testing. The LR model was trained with nine out of thirty-three features, while the Support Vector Regression (SVR) model used twenty-eight features for its training. The SVR model had a higher variance (0.48), accuracy (92.41%), and lower Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) of 7.59% compared to the LR model's variance of 0.26, accuracy of 91.87%, and MAPE of 8.13%. The SVR model was more accurate in predicting energy consumption, as it showed better accuracy on the test set with lower MAPE and higher R-squared value. Both models outperformed a relatively complex and computationally expensive model in a previous study. It also identified areas with high energy consumption which could be used to inform the building's energy management strategy.