A data-driven approach for steam load prediction in buildings

Predicting building energy load is important in energy management. This load is often the result of steam heating and cooling of buildings. In this paper, a data-driven approach for the development of a daily steam load model is presented. Data-mining algorithms are used to select significant parameters used to develop models. A neural network (NN) ensemble with five MLPs (multi-layer perceptrons) performed best among all data-mining algorithms tested and therefore was selected to develop a predictive model. To meet the constraints of the existing energy management applications, Monte Carlo simulation is used to investigate uncertainty propagation of the model built by using weather forecast data. Based on the formulated model and weather forecasting data, future steam consumption is estimated. The latter allows optimal decisions to be made while managing fuel purchasing, scheduling the steam boiler, and building energy consumption. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.