Ultra-short-term building cooling load prediction model based on feature set construction and ensemble machine learning

Abstract

As the requirements for the optimal control of building systems increase, the accuracy and speed of load predictions should also increase. However, the accuracy of load predictions is related to not only the prediction algorithm, but also the feature set construction. Therefore, this study develops a short-term building cooling load prediction model based on feature set construction. The impacts of four different feature set construction methods—feature extraction, correlation analysis, K-means clustering, and discrete wavelet transform (DWT)—on the prediction accuracy are compared. To ensure that the effect of the feature set construction method is universal, three different prediction algorithms are used. The influences of the sample dimension and prediction time horizon on the prediction accuracy are also analysed. The prediction model is developed based on an ensemble learning algorithm utilising the cubist algorithm, and the performance of the prediction model is improved when DWT is used for constructing the feature set. Compared with other commonly used prediction models, the proposed model exhibits the best performance, with R-squared and CV-RMSE values of 99.8% and 1.5%, respectively.