Energy 218 (2021) 119539

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Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy

Data driven occupancy information for energy simulation and energy

use assessment in residential buildings
Karthik Panchabikesan a, Fariborz Haghighat a, *, Mohamed El Mankibi b
a
Energy and Environment Group, Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Concordia University, Montreal, H3G 1M8, Canada
b
Building and Civil Engineering Laboratory (LGCB), Ecole Nationale des Travaux Publics de L’Etat (ENTPE) Vaulx-en-Velin, Lyon, France

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Occupant’s schedules and their energy-use behavior are substantial inputs for building energy simula-
Received 20 May 2020 tions and energy management in buildings. In practice, most of the research studies consider default
Received in revised form occupant schedules from the standards. Subsequently, the temporal variations associated with occu-
23 October 2020
pancy is often missed out, leading to uncertainties in simulation results. This study aims to address two
Accepted 4 December 2020
Available online 13 December 2020
research problems in terms of occupancy: 1) upon the availability of the data, how to systematically
extract the different occupant schedules, 2) when the occupancy data is not available, what are the other
commonly logged parameters (such as plug load, lighting energy consumption, indoor carbon dioxide
Keywords:
Knowledge discovery
(CO2) concentration, and indoor relative humidity data) that shall be used to represent the occupancy in
Residential buildings buildings. Regarding the first objective, a generic data-driven framework with the combination of shape-
Occupant activity schedules based clustering and change-point detection method is proposed to extract the distinct occupancy in
Presence probability residential buildings in terms of occupant activity schedule and presence probability. To demonstrate the
Statistical models outcomes of the framework, it was applied to the dataset collected from eight apartments located in
Lyon, France. The results show the existence of different occupant patterns in buildings with respect to
day of the week and season of the year. To achieve the second objective, linear and logistic regression
models were developed to represent the occupant activity level and occupant presence/absence state,
respectively. The linear regression model results show that among the examined variables, the lighting,
and plug load consumption data along with the hour of the day show better prediction results in terms of
adjusted R2 and mean absolute percentage error. For the occupant presence/absence state, the logistic
regression model developed using CO2 concentration and plug load energy consumption dataset shows
better results in misclassification error, confusion matrix, and receiver operating characteristic curve.
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
1.1. Research background
The occupant related inputs such as occupant schedule, tem-
perature setpoint, and equipment usage profile substantially in-
fluence building energy simulation results and energy demand
predictions [1]. In residential buildings, use of electrical appliances,
thermostat setpoint temperatures are highly dependent on the
occupant’s energy use behaviour. Hence, the schedules of occu-
pants, plug power, lighting usage and thermostat setpoint tem-
perature are strongly correlated with each other. In most of the
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: Fariborz.Haghighat@concordia.ca (F. Haghighat).
energy simulation software, the heating, ventilation and air con-
ditioning loads are estimated based on the temperature setpoint
schedules and internal gains. Thus, it is highly recommended to
define realistic schedules related to occupancy, setpoints and
equipment usage. Knowing the importance of occupant behavior in
evaluating the building energy performance, especially at the urban
scale, International Energy Agency have Annexes 53 [2], 66 [3] and
79 focusing on studying the influence of occupants in building
energy use, simulation methods of occupant behaviour and
addressing the research issues related to occupant-centric building
design and operation, respectively. This emphasizes the research
potential and need for understanding, modelling the occupancy in
building performance simulation. Buttitta et al. [4] insisted that the
occupant presence/absence state and activity schedule should be
considered in building energy simulations, as both have influence
in defining occupant schedules and estimating internal heat gains

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2020.119539
0360-5442/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
K. Panchabikesan, F. Haghighat and M.E. Mankibi
Abbreviations
AUROC Area under the receiver operating characteristic
BEMS Building energy management system
CO2 carbon dioxide
CPD Change point detection
DM Data mining
FPR False positive rate
MAPE Mean absolute percentage error
MC error Misclassification error
ppm Parts per million
RH Relative humidity
ROC Receiver operating characteristic
SBD Shape based distance
due to occupants. In general, the occupant schedule is highly un-
certain [5]. Thus, in most building energy simulations, the default
schedule (based on the building codes, national averages) is
considered irrespective of whether occupancy in a building would
change based on the day of the week and season [6]. This often
leads to uncertainties, resulting in a significant difference between
the simulation results and the operational data [1]. The main reason
for considering the default/standardized schedules is the data non-
availability, and in most cases, the actual occupant behavior is
unknown [7]. Recently, there is a wide implementation of smart
energy meters in residential and office buildings, resulting in
massive data collection related to occupancy, energy, and indoor
environmental condition. One example of such a comprehensive
data source is the ’Donate Your Data’ initiated by the thermostat
manufacturer ecobee Inc [8]. In this context, upon the availability of
occupant related data, it is vital to develop a generic data-driven
framework that collectively analyses and extracts distinct
occupant-related information from the data collected in residential
buildings.
On the other hand, occupant role in realizing energy-saving
activities is recognized as a cost-effective measure compared to
other conventional energy savings actions that usually require in-
vestments [9]. Prior studies [10,11,33] indicate that 5e25% energy
savings in residential buildings are possible by providing; 1)
energy-related feedback to occupants [12], and 2) insights about
their standings on energy use behavior compared to other similar
buildings [13]. Though some studies [14] focused on emphasizing
the occupant’s role in achieving energy savings, they did not pro-
vide clear direction for the occupants to make informed decisions
on how, when, and what they should do to improve energy effi-
ciency. The main reason for the above said is the lack of under-
standing of occupant behavior [15]. Most of the literature studies
have not considered the diversity associated with the occupant
schedule and level of activity while recommending energy-saving
measures [16]. In this regard, systematic analysis of the data
collected from building energy management system (BEMS), smart
metering systems is beneficial for generating reliable occupant
related input data for building energy models [17] and energy
performance analysis.
1.2. Studies related to occupant pattern extraction and prediction
D’Oca et al. [18], in their data mining based study, considered
the time of the day, day of the week, season, window change ac-
tivities as the predictor attributes to predict the occupant presence
in the office buildings. The developed decision tree model predicted
the occupant presence state with an accuracy of 90.53%. Causone
2
Energy 218 (2021) 119539
et al. [17] generated the yearly occupant profiles for a group of flats
using the electric load profiles to represent internal heat gains in
the energy simulations. Initially, the self-organizing map algorithm,
k-means clustering was used for daily pattern recognition, and
later, k-nearest neighbors were used for generating the yearly
occupant profiles. Mitra et al. [19] extracted the occupancy profiles
for typical residential buildings in the United States using the
American Time Use Survey data. They reported that there is a 41%
variation between the developed schedules and currently used
residential schedules in energy simulations in specific cases. Razavi
et al. [20] developed a dynamic genetic programming-based
feature engineering process to detect the occupancy in residential
buildings using the energy consumption data. The results show that
the real-time smart metering data can supremely detect the
household’s presence or absence state with the area under the
receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) of 0.98. Zhou et al. [21]
developed the multi-grained cascade forest model to estimate the
indoor occupancy using the CO2 sensor data. The wavelet denoising
method was used to remove the noise in the CO2 data. It is reported
that the developed model outperformed the other models (classi-
fication and regression trees, support vector machine, inhomoge-
neous hidden Markov model) in terms of accuracy, capturing the
first arrival and last departure time.
Recently, new data sources such as Wi-Fi signals, mobile global
positioning system signals [22], location-based services data [7],
and thermostat data [23] are considered to analyze the building
occupancy. For instance, Happle et al. [7] proposed a workflow to
generate representative occupant schedules from the location-
based data (such as Google maps and Facebook) collected in retail
shops and restaurants from 13 cities in the United States. Their
results showed variation in occupancy between different days of
the week, and distinct occupancy profiles should be considered for
weekdays, Saturday, and Sunday. Huchuk et al. [23] compared
various machine learning models to predict the future occupant
presence/absence state in residential buildings using the thermo-
stat data. The authors reported that random forest model, logistic
regression and Markov model showed better prediction perfor-
mance (because of their robustness to a range of conditions,
computational efficiency in terms of training and prediction)
compared to hidden Markov models and recurring neural
networks.
1.3. Studies related to occupant related energy behavior analysis in
buildings
International Energy Agency Annex 53 [2] identified occupant
behavior as one of the six factors influencing building energy usage.
Occupants play a significant role in the energy performance of even
highly energy-efficient buildings. Hence, it is essential not only to
model occupancy in buildings but also to quantify occupants’
impact on building energy use. Nord et al. [24] analyzed occupant
behavior’s influence on heating and cooling demand, indoor air
quality, and electricity grid interaction of a zero-emission building.
Their results emphasized the need for the detailed occupant
behavior analysis for the appropriate design of energy systems and
smart energy management in buildings during peak hours. Yoshino
et al. [2] reported that in the past, most of the research works were
focused on understanding the influence of the physical factors
(weather, building envelope, and equipment), and more studies
must be performed on studying the influence of human factors
(occupant behavior, operation & maintenance). In recent years, the
data mining (DM) and data-driven tools are well-acknowledged for
pattern recognition [18,25], for exploring the role of occupant
behaviour in achieving energy savings in residential [12,26] and
institutional buildings [27], occupancy prediction [18,28] and
K. Panchabikesan, F. Haghighat and M.E. Mankibi
energy demand modelling [29]. Yu et al. [25] used the end-use load
data to explore occupant behavior’s influence on building energy
use. The authors reported the possibilities of energy savings po-
tential by modifying the occupant’s energy-inefficient activities (s).
The same authors [30] used the combination of DM tools (clus-
tering analysis, decision tree, and associate rule mining) to identify
the energy-inefficient occupant behavior and, accordingly, sug-
gested modifications to improve the occupant behavior in resi-
dential buildings. Ashouri et al. [14] with a similar objective as
[25,30] used clustering analysis, associate rule mining to identify
the energy-inefficient occupant behavior. Rules for energy savings,
behavior modifications were extracted, and an artificial neural
network was used to quantify the possible energy savings in resi-
dential buildings through the change of occupant behavior.
Though the studies mentioned above supremely emphasized
the applicability of DM tools in exploring the impact of occupant
behavior on residential buildings’ energy use, the major limitation
is the non-consideration of the actual occupant-related information
because of the data non-availability. Since the occupant activity
schedule, presence state in one building might differ from the
others or even differ for the same building for different days, the
actual reasons for the difference in energy consumption between
the buildings are unknown. Hence, the estimated energy saving
potential may possess uncertainty. Therefore, researchers [14,30]
reported that the non-availability of occupants related data is a
limitation and inclusion of occupant activity schedule, presence
state, age, the profession would further increase the accuracy of the
DM frameworks in recommending more reliable energy-saving
measures in line with the occupant preferences.
1.4. Inference from the literature and problem statement
Most of the urban scale building energy modeling considers
default/standard occupant schedules (for all building archetypes)
available in the energy simulation software tools, which is not true
in real case scenario. It is important to extract occupant patterns at
a city/district level beyond individual buildings because it is
essential for decision making and implementation of energy pol-
icies at an urban scale. Though in recent times, data-driven
methods and probabilistic models were developed to represent
occupancy levels in buildings, most studies focused on office
[18,31] and institutional buildings [27,32] where routineness in the
occupant schedules, presence probability is highly possible because
of the scheduled timing (e.g., 09:00 he17:00 h). While in residen-
tial buildings, such a routine profile is not expected, and the
occupant pattern varies based on several factors. On the other hand,
the main hindrance to represent occupancy at an urban scale,
especially in residential buildings, is the data non-availability. Not
all the houses are expected to be installed with high-resolution
motion detection sensors. In the case of office and commercial
buildings, the wifi signals, location-based signals, and details from
web sources could represent occupancy. In contrast, in residential
buildings, the occupants are reluctant to share the data due to
privacy issues. In this regard, it is important to study the use of
other variables to represent occupant related information (in the
absence of such data) in residential buildings. Though plug loads
are widely used to represent the occupancy in residential buildings,
there exists a question that how well the electrical appliance usage
data could replicate both the occupant activity schedule and
presence state compared to other attributes such as lighting energy
consumption (please refer to Figure S2 in the supplementary
document), CO2, relative humidity (RH) data). In this regard,
providing insights on the alternatives that shall be statistically used
to represent the occupancy in buildings will be beneficial.
3
Energy 218 (2021) 119539
1.5. Objectives and uniqueness of the study
The present work aims to; 1) develop a data-driven framework
that systematically explores occupant activity schedule, presence
probability in residential buildings and to provide insights on their
inherent temporal variations, 2) statistically determine the signif-
icance of other commonly logged parameters on representing the
occupant schedule and occupant presence probability in residential
buildings (in the absence of such data). The uniqueness of the
proposed framework is that it could be used to extract occupant
schedules from ’n’ number of buildings, and the output of the
framework can be used to define the distinct hourly occupant
schedules while performing building energy simulation platform
and energy use assessment. Since change point analysis is used, the
specific hour(s) of the day at which the occupancy changes majorly
can be determined. Such details could be used as important infor-
mation during energy simulation to define the hourly occupant
schedules. Besides, the outcomes of the regression analysis will be
useful to get insights on the statistical significance of the other
commonly logged parameters on representing the occupancy in
residential buildings, when such data are not available.
1.6. Organization of the paper
The paper is organized into six sections, including the intro-
duction and conclusion. In Section 2, the step-by-step methodology
is explained in two sub sections (Section 2.1 and 2.2) considering
the study’s objectives. Section 3 describes the dataset used, and the
data preprocessing steps followed to reach the objectives. In Sec-
tion 4, the results obtained concerning objectives 1 and 2 are pre-
sented, respectively. Section 5 clarifies the paper’s main outcomes
and findings and clarifies the contribution of the paper. Finally, the
conclusion of the study is summarized in Section 6.
2. Methodology
2.1. Data-driven framework to extract distinct occupant patterns
and presence probability
Fig. 1 shows the step by step procedure involved in the proposed
data-driven framework to extract temporal based occupant
schedules and occupant presence probability, respectively.
2.1.1. Step 1: data preparation
In knowledge discovery in databases, an essential step to be
performed before the data analysis is processing the raw dataset
collected from BEMS. In this study, data cleaning (handling of NA’s
and missing values), data aggregation, and data separation are
performed before the extraction of daily occupant patterns. Since
(in the authors’ opinion), it is inappropriate to explain the data
preparation methods before the dataset description used in the
study, the details of data preprocessing steps are presented in
section 3.2.
2.1.2. Step 2: clustering
Fig. 1 shows that in Step 2, clustering is performed at two levels
(Level 1 and 2). It is to be mentioned that this study focuses on
extracting different occupant schedules from ’n’ number of build-
ings rather than the individual buildings. In this regard, it is
meaningful first to discover the distinct occupant patterns within
the clustered apartments or individual apartments (level 2 clus-
tering). By this two-level clustering procedure, extraction of the
sequential occupancy profile at the urban/city level can be per-
formed. The details of the data format used for Level 1 and Level 2
clustering are presented in section 3.2.4.
K. Panchabikesan, F. Haghighat and M.E. Mankibi
Fig. 1. The systematic data-driven framework to explore occupant patterns in residential buildings.
To perform the clustering analysis, k-Shape clustering [36], a
domain-independent, accurate and scalable approach for time se-
ries clustering that outperforms partitional, hierarchical, and
spectral methods in terms of accuracy, is used in the study. The k-
Shape clustering method uses shape-based distance (SBD) as a
distance measure, which is invariant to shifting and scaling. The
cross-correlational (CCw) statistical measures in Equation (1) are
used to compute each cluster’s centroid. Since k-Shape is based on
iterative refinement procedure, in each iteration assignment and
refinement step are performed. To address the shift variance, in the
assignment step, SBD, as shown in Equation (1), is used to update
the memberships of the cluster by calculating time series data
centroids and by clustering each time series data with the one
having the closest centroid. Note that, to account for the scaling
invariance, the sequential or time-series data is z-normalized in the
assignment step. In the refinement step, the updated members in
each cluster lead to the update of the cluster centroids.
! detail in the document attached as the supplementary material.
! !
! ! CCw ð x ; y Þ
SBDð x ; y Þ ¼ 1  max qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
w ! ! ! !
R0 ð x ; x Þ: R0 ð y ; y
Considering its competitive ability, higher efficiency, and accu-
racy compared to k-means, the k-Shape clustering is used in this
study to perform the time series clustering using the R package
’dtwclust’. Similar to k-means, input related to the number of
clusters (k) must be predefined in the k-Shape clustering. Accord-
ingly, the Dunn index, a commonly used internal cluster validation
index, is used. Higher Dunn index value denotes the best ’k.’ Note
that the dataset is z-normalized before clustering. The distance
measure and centroid method used is ’sbd’ and ’shape,’ respectively.
Energy 218 (2021) 119539
2.1.3. Step 3: changepoint detection
In time-series data, to understand/explore the occupant
schedule and presence probability, it is first essential to precisely
identify the time at which occupant’s level/state varies signifi-
cantly. In this regard, changepoint detection (CPD), a statistical
method that detects any distinct changes in the mean and variance
values of time-series data can be used. CPD calculates the optimal
positioning and number of changepoints in time series data. CPD
method is used in this study for three reasons; 1) to find the change
point (i.e., the specific hour of the day) at which the level of oc-
cupancy changes significantly, 2) to determine the average number
of occupant movements between the detected changepoints (this
helps in defining the internal heat gains due to occupants in
building simulation by considering the occupant’s activity level for
a specific period instead of a specific hour), and 3) to find the
average presence probability of occupants in a specific period. To
perform CPD, the ’Changepoint’ package available in R programming
is used. A detailed explanation of the change point detection with
an example and the statistical measures used are explained in
(1)
2.2. Statistical analysis on the use of other parameters to represent
occupancy in residential buildings
The objective here is to investigate the significance of commonly
logged parameters such as plug power, lighting power, indoor CO2,
indoor RH data to represent the occupancy in residential buildings
and not to compare the performance of various machine learning
models for occupancy prediction as carried out in Ref. [23].
Accordingly, in this study, linear and logistic regression models are
developed using the parameters mentioned above to predict the
occupant activity schedules and occupant presence probability. The
4
K. Panchabikesan, F. Haghighat and M.E. Mankibi
model accuracy is reported in terms of adjusted R2, mean absolute
percentage error (MAPE) for linear regression method and
misclassification error, confusion matrix, receiver operating char-
acteristic (ROC) curve for logistic regression. For the linear regres-
sion model, the hour of the day, lighting, plug load energy
consumption data, indoor CO2, and RH data are used respectively to
predict the occupant activity schedule in all the considered apart-
ments. It is to be mentioned that a separate linear regression model
was developed for each parameter, and the relationship between
the dependent variable (occupant activity schedule) and the inde-
pendent variable(s) were determined. For example, Model 1 (later
mentioned in section 4.2.1) is developed by considering the lighting
power consumption data as the independent variable. Likewise,
Models 2, 3, and 4 represent the model developed using plug power
data, CO2 data, and RH data, respectively, as the predictor variable.
Similarly, Model(s) 1, 2, 3, and 4 mentioned in section 4.2.2
represent the logistic regression model developed using lighting,
plug load energy consumption, CO2, and RH datasets, respectively.
In the logistic regression model, for calculating the misclassification
error, the definition of optimal prediction probability cutoff is
essential to convert the predicted value into a binary value. In
default, the cutoff probabilistic score of 0.5 is used. However,
adjusting the probability cutoff value improves the accuracy of the
model. Hence, in this study, an R function named ’optimalCutoff"
under R package ’InformationValue’ is used to determine the
optimal probability cutoff value.
3. Data description and processing
3.1. Dataset description
The dataset used in this study belongs to eight numbers of 3-
bedroom apartments of a district located in Lyon, France. The
one-year dataset collected between January and December 2016
was used for the analysis. Each apartment is installed with a home
energy management system (HEMS) that monitors and records the
indoor environment and energy use (plug load and lighting) at a 1-
min resolution. Further, there is a cloud BEMS to provide integrated
management for the group of buildings as a whole through the
secure internet network. The data regarding occupant movement
detection (0 or 1), indoor CO2 (ppm), indoor RH (%), temperature
(oC), and the number of occupants living in the apartment is
available. The occupant movement detection sensors are installed
in the living room, each bedroom, kitchen, corridors, bathroom, and
toilet, respectively, whereas CO2, temperature, and RH sensors are
installed only in the living room and bedrooms. The plug load and
lighting energy consumption data (Wh) are recorded to represent
the building energy use. Unlike the occupant movement detection
sensor, the zones/rooms and connected appliance details for plug
power consumption data are unknown. The details of the floor plan
and the coverage area of the motion sensors installed in the
apartment are shown in Figure S1 of the supplementary document.
The details of sensors used to detect occupant movement and po-
wer consumption (both plug power and lighting) are given in
Table 1
Specification of sensors installed in the considered apartments.
Sensor Manufacturer details Type
Presence detector Theben PlanoCentro A-KNX
Plug load and lighting ABB KNX Energy Module: EM/S 3.16.1
Indoor CO2 and RH Theben AMUN 716
a
Note that event-based sensors can be triggered at any time. The occupant movement detected in the actual registry time was transformed into the structured and
organized data at 1-min resolution. In specific, if one or more movements are detected within 1 min, it is recognized as 1.
5
Energy 218 (2021) 119539
Table 1.
3.2. Data preprocessing
It is to be mentioned that for the first objective of the study (i.e.,
to extract occupant activity schedule and occupant presence/
absence probability), the motion detection data (’00 or ’10 ) recorded
at a 1-min time interval by the presence detector sensor was used.
For the second objective (i.e., to statistically analyze the use of other
parameters to represent the occupancy in buildings), the plug load,
lighting energy consumption data, indoor CO2 and RH data were
used. The data cleaning and data aggregation methods adopted to
respective parameters are explained in the following sections.
3.2.1. Data cleaning
Since the occupant movement detection data is a binary value,
there is no outlier/anomalies detected in the entire dataset data
was intermittently filled with ’NA’. The existence of ’NAs’ is not
continuous, and hence they were replaced by the previous data. On
the other hand, the entire day is neglected if the data are filled with
NA’s and missing entirely for more than 1 h. Further, the unoccu-
pied days (i.e., days when the apartment is entirely unoccupied) are
removed. After removing the unoccupied days in all the apart-
ments, it is found that among the eight apartments, one apartment
was occupied only for 88 days in the whole year. Hence, it is not
considered for the analysis. On the other hand, to detect the out-
liers/anomalies in the plug power, lighting energy consumption,
indoor CO2, RH data, the quantile method is used.
3.2.2. Data aggregation
Note that this study’s interest relies on extracting the daily
occupant patterns from a group of apartments rather than an in-
dividual apartment. In this regard, consideration of the occupant
movement data concerning each room of the apartment separately
would make the analysis complex. Therefore, the occupant move-
ments detected in all the rooms in an apartment at a given minute
are aggregated, and a new attribute (total movements detected in
the entire apartment per minute) is generated. Subsequently, the 1-
min data is aggregated into hourly data. Further, the indoor CO2 and
RH data recorded in specific rooms at a given minute is averaged to
obtain the mean value for the entire apartment, whereas, for plug
power and lighting energy consumption data, the values are
aggregated.
3.2.3. Data preparation for clustering
The objective of Level 1 clustering is to find the apartments with
similar occupant schedules. In this regard, for each apartment, the
time-series dataset that represents the average of occupant
movements detected at each hour for the whole year is considered.
Accordingly, a data frame containing seven observations with 24
variables is generated, as shown in Fig. 2 (left). Besides, the objec-
tive of Level 2 clustering is to extract distinct occupant schedules in
the considered buildings. Therefore, based on the results of Level 1
clustering, the data corresponding to the apartments with similar
Accuracy Detection area/range Measurement resolution
e 64 m2 if seated Event-baseda
±2e6% e 1 min
e CO2: 0e9999 ppm 1 min
RH: 1e100%
K. Panchabikesan, F. Haghighat and M.E. Mankibi Energy 218 (2021) 119539

Fig. 2. Data considered for Level 1 clustering (left) and example of data considered for Level 2 clustering (right).

occupant profiles are grouped together, and their daily data in
terms of the total number of occupant movement detected for each
hour (shown as an example in Fig. 2 (right)) is considered to
perform Level 2 clustering.
3.2.4. Data separation
Unlike office buildings, residential buildings are occupied every
day of the week. Hence, it is essential to study whether the
occupant patterns and presence status vary significantly during the
weekends compared to weekdays. This is one of the critical inputs
that should be considered while assessing energy use performance
and electric load, space conditioning demand forecasting in resi-
dential buildings. Thus, to explore the variation in occupant activity
and presence probability between weekdays and weekends, the
dataset (after Level 1 clustering) is separated into weekdays,
weekends. Subsequently, Level 2 clustering is performed.

Fig. 3. Level 1 clustering results.

6
K. Panchabikesan, F. Haghighat and M.E. Mankibi Energy 218 (2021) 119539

Table 2
Clusters description.

Types of occupant pattern Cluster # Apartment Characteristics

Type A 5 3 and 7 Dual (morning and evening) peak pattern 1a

Type A-l 3 4 Dual peak pattern 2
Type B 4 2 Morning peak
Type C 1 1 and 6 All-time active pattern 1
Type C-l 2 5 All-time active pattern 2
a
Dual peak denotes the high occupant movements in the morning and evening in the respective apartment(s). Morning peak represents high occupant movements
detected only in the morning.

Fig. 4. Level 2 clustering results of weekdays for Type A occupant pattern (The x-axis of the heat map is ’Hours’ and the contour represent the total number of occupant’s movement
detected for the given day and hour).

4. Results and discussion initially, the level 1 clustering results are explained, followed by
level 2 clustering results.
4.1. Extraction of occupant activity schedule and presence
probability 4.1.1. Level 1 clustering
Fig. 3 shows the results of Level 1 clustering, where the apart-
In this section, the distinct occupant patterns extracted using ments with similar occupant patterns are grouped in the same
the developed data-driven framework is presented. Note that, the cluster. As shown in the figure, the apartments are grouped as 5
occupant activity schedule could be used to estimate the internal clusters based on the results of the internal cluster validation index
heat gains and presence probabilty shall be used to determine the (i.e., Dunn index). Each cluster’s characteristics can be described by
number of occupants present in the building. In this section, its centroid, which represents the standard score of the dataset that
belonged to the respective cluster. As seen in the figure, the
apartments with similar occupant schedules are grouped in clus-
Table 3 ters 1 and 5, and apartments with distinct occupant schedules are
Distribution of days in each cluster (apartments with Type A occupancy pattern).
represented as separate clusters. Since the dataset is z-normalized
Clusters Spring Summer Autumn Winter and the occupant movements in the entire apartment are consid-
Cluster 1 15 %a 10% 41% 34% ered (instead of individual rooms), ’n’ number of buildings can be
Cluster 2 31% 31% 17% 21% considered for the analysis. Based on the Level 1 clustering results,
Cluster 3 23% 19% 34% 24% each cluster is characterized as shown in Table 2. Since apartments
a
The percentage in the table represent the distribution of days in each cluster grouped in cluster 1 have similar occupant schedules (refer Fig. 3),
concerning different seasons. the attribute ’number of occupant movement detected’ belonged to
7
K. Panchabikesan, F. Haghighat and M.E. Mankibi
Fig. 5. Number of occupant movements detected for each hour of the day in each cluster.
Fig. 6. Hourly occupant activity schedule for each day for Type A occupancy pattern.
apartments 1 and 6 are considered as one dataset and are grouped
as weekdays and weekends, respectively. Accordingly, Level 2
clustering is performed on the combined dataset. Similarly, the
dataset of apartments 3 and 7 are grouped to perform the level 2
clustering. For apartments 2, 4, and 5, the dataset is separated as
weekdays, weekends, and subsequently, clustering is performed for
each respective apartment to explore the distinct occupant
schedules.
For the illustration of results and considering a similar proced-
ure followed for the extraction of occupant schedule, presence
probability in Type B, Type C, and C-1 occupant patterns, the Level 2
clustering results of Type A and Type A-1 alone are explained in the
paper.
4.1.2. Level 2 e clustering
4.1.2.1. Type A occupant patterns during weekdays. As mentioned in
8
Energy 218 (2021) 119539
section 3.2.3, for Level 2 clustering, the daily time-series occupant
movement data in apartment 3 and 7 were merged. In specific, 356
weekdays (i.e. 172 days (for apartment 3) and 184 days (for apart-
ment 7)), 137 weekend days (i.e. 50 days (for apartment 3) and 87
days (for apartment 7)) are considered, respectively. Note that Level
2 clustering is performed separately for weekdays and weekends.
Based on the results of the Dunn index, the weekday’s dataset is
grouped into 3 clusters. Among the considered weekdays, 29%, 39%,
and 32% of the days belonged to cluster 1, 2, and 3, respectively.
Fig. 4 shows the standard (z) score of each cluster’s centroid and the
heat map of temporal occupant movement recorded for each day in
the respective cluster. As seen from the figure, the apartments
having Type-A occupant pattern (refer Table 2) possess three
distinct patterns; 1) cluster 1, where the occupant movements are
high throughout the day, 2) cluster 2, with high occupant move-
ments observed in the morning, and 3) cluster 3, where the days
K. Panchabikesan, F. Haghighat and M.E. Mankibi
Fig. 7. Clusterwise presence probability of occupants for each hour of the day (Type A occupant pattern).
with inherent clustering characteristics (i.e., high occupant move-
ment in morning and evening). The inference from Fig. 4 is that in
apartments that possess a dual peak occupant schedule, some days
(cluster 1) possessed different occupant schedules/activity levels,
and this diversity should be considered while energy prediction
and energy use assessment. The data distribution (in terms of the
number of days) of clusters 1, 2, and 3 concerning seasons are
shown in Table 3. Note that, similar to season-wise distribution
analysis, the data is also analyzed in the day of the week aspect (i.e.,
the number of days belongs to Monday to Friday, respectively).
However, no unique variation (as observed in season-wise distri-
bution) is found in this regard, and hence the specific results are not
presented.
It is inferred from Table 3 that in cluster 1, where the occupant
movements are relatively higher throughout the day, 75% of the
days belonged to autumn and winter. On the other hand, in cluster
2, the majority (62%) of the days belonged to spring and summer,
whereas in cluster 3, no such significant distinct variation is
observed. This gives the information that most of the days in
autumn and winter, the occupant (especially in apartment 3) re-
mains home. In summer and spring, the occupant’s follow a
working schedule wherein the afternoon low occupant movements
are detected for all the weekdays. In this case, a separate heating/
cooling schedule, energy-saving advisories must be followed for
the days in clusters 1, 2, and 3, respectively. The consideration of the
default occupant schedule for assessment of building energy use
will lead to significant errors. Besides, comparing the building en-
ergy use between different days within the same apartment
without considering the explored occupancy schedules will lead to
9
Energy 218 (2021) 119539
over/underestimation of energy-saving potential. For the explicit
representation of the results, the average of hourly occupant
movements for each day of the week is presented in Fig. 5. As seen
from the figure, the occupant movement in cluster 1 is relatively
high for the entire day compared to clusters 2 and 3.
Though the patterns of daily occupant movements can be
observed from Fig. 5, information on the specific time when the
occupant schedule varies significantly is unclear. For instance, it is
clear from Fig. 5 that around 06:00 h, the occupant activity changes
considerably in all the clusters, but after that, such time specifica-
tion seems complicated. In this regard, the CPD method is used to
find the time at which the occupant activity level varies signifi-
cantly for each cluster. Fig. 6 shows the results of the CPD method,
where the occupant schedule presented in Fig. 5 is transformed
using min-max normalization, and the activity level for each hour is
specified. The information shown in Fig. 6 can be used as the sig-
nificant information to define the periods (during when high (low)
occupant activity is expected), and accordingly, the internal heat
gains due to occupant activity schedule in residential buildings can
be interpreted.
In Fig. 6, the extracted information related to occupant activity
in each cluster is presented. Such information could be beneficial
while estimating the heating/cooling demands and internal heat
gains due to occupants. Besides, information related to occupant’s
presence probability is crucial in building energy simulations to
know the actual number of occupants in the building. Accordingly,
the daily occupant presence probability is derived for each cluster
and is presented in Fig. 7. The figure shows the occupant’s presence
probability on each day of the week for three clusters, respectively.
K. Panchabikesan, F. Haghighat and M.E. Mankibi Energy 218 (2021) 119539

Fig. 8. Level 2 clustering results of Type A occupant pattern during weekends.

Fig. 9. Level 2 clustering results of Type A-1 occupant pattern (apartment 4).

As depicted in Fig. 7, the probability of the occupant is present in
the building is high throughout the day for cluster 1. In contrast,
clusters 2 and 3 follow the dual peak pattern, where the presence
probability is higher during the morning and evening hours.
4.1.2.2. Type A occupant patterns during weekends. Fig. 8 (a) shows
the clustering results of Type A pattern for the weekends. Totally,
10
137 days were considered for weekends and clustered into two
clusters based on the Dunn index results. As seen from the figure,
days with higher occupant movements for the entire day are
grouped in cluster 1, and the days with dual peak patterns are
grouped in cluster 2. The inference from the clustering result is that
74% of the days belonged to cluster 2, which indicates that the
occupant in apartments 3 and 7 follow a similar schedule (Type A
K. Panchabikesan, F. Haghighat and M.E. Mankibi Energy 218 (2021) 119539

Table 4 being present at home between 11:00 he18:00 h is only 20%. In this
Distribution of days in each cluster (apartments with Type A-1 occupant pattern). case, it can be considered as the occupant absence. This can be
Weekdays Cluster 1 Cluster 2 useful information to forecast the energy demand in the building
Monday 0%a 44%
and assess the occupants’ energy use behavior.
Tuesday 30% 10%
Wednesday 30% 7% 4.1.2.3. Type A-1 occupant patterns during weekdays. The Level 2
Thursday 28% 13%
clustering results of apartment 4 and the distribution of days in
Friday 12% 26%
each cluster are shown in Fig. 9 and Table 4, respectively. Based on
a
The numbers inside the table represent the distribution of days in each cluster the Dunn index results, the weekdays in apartment 4 are grouped
with respect to weekdays.
into two clusters, and out of 214 weekdays, 115 days were grouped
in cluster 1. As depicted in Fig. 9, days with consistent dual peak
occupant pattern) during both weekdays and weekends. The other occupant schedule were grouped in clusters 1, and days with
inference is, in cluster 2, during Sunday, the number of occupant irregular occupancy were grouped in cluster 2. Interestingly, not
movements in the afternoon is minimum (similar to nighttime), even a single Monday is grouped in cluster 1, which indicates the
which indicates the occupant absence at home. This can be different occupant activity schedule during Mondays compared to
affirmed by referring to Fig. 8 (b) and Fig. 8 (c), where the former other weekdays. On the other hand, Fig. 9 (right) shows that the
figure depicts the normalized occupant movement/activity level, occupant activity during Fridays in cluster 2 is almost similar to
and the latter depicts the occupant’s presence probability for the cluster 1, except for the fact that the number of occupant move-
days in each cluster during the weekends. Fig. 8 (c) clearly indicates ments during the evening in cluster 2 is relatively less. Further-
that for the days belonged to cluster 2, the probability of occupant more, Table 4 indicates that in cluster 2, Monday (44%) and Friday
(26%) dominated the cluster composition, which means the

Fig. 10. Hourly occupant activity level for each day for the Type A-1 occupant pattern.

Fig. 11. Clusterwise presence probability of occupants for each hour of the day (Type A-1 occupant pattern).

11
K. Panchabikesan, F. Haghighat and M.E. Mankibi Energy 218 (2021) 119539

Fig. 12. Level 2 clustering results of Type A-1 occupant pattern during weekends.

Table 5
Results of linear regression models without considering the hour of the day as a predictor variable.

Apartment Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4

2 2 2
Adjusted R MAPE Adjusted R MAPE Adjusted R MAPE Adjusted R2 MAPE

1 0.51 0.51 0.57 0.44 0.41 0.56 0.08 0.61

2 0.57 0.45 0.61 0.35 0.08 0.55 0.00 0.54
3 0.71 0.35 0.71 0.30 0.16 0.50 0.02 0.50
4 0.60 0.43 0.58 0.41 0.01 0.65 0.08 0.62
5 0.47 0.45 0.58 0.41 0.33 0.49 0.13 0.51
6 0.51 0.44 0.71 0.32 0.37 0.77 0.07 0.51
7 0.84 0.23 0.68 0.37 0.00 0.61 0.04 0.60

occupant schedule in the rest of the days in cluster 2 is irregular or
happened occasionally.
After performing Level 2 clustering, the normalized occupant
activity level and the daily weekday presence probability are ob-
tained using the CPD method, and the results are plotted as Fig. 10
and Fig. 11, respectively. Note that similar to apartments 3 and 7,
variations in the distribution of days with respect to seasons were
analyzed for apartment 4. The results showed no distinctive dif-
ference between the distribution of days in terms of season. The
understanding from the k-Shape clustering is that consistent
occupant schedule is followed in apartment 4 (similar pattern from
Tuesday to Friday and a unique pattern on Monday’s) and these
findings shall be an essential input while building energy use
assessment, energy use simulation and for programming the
thermostats and other electrical appliances.
4.1.2.4. Type A-1 occupant patterns during weekends. The Dunn
index showed the optimal number of clusters as 7 for the Type A-1
occupant pattern for the weekend days. Accordingly, the level 2
clustering is performed, and the result is depicted in Fig. 12. The
12
figure’s inference is that unlike apartments 3 and 7, the occupant
does not follow a similar/repetitive occupant schedule as weekdays
in apartment 4 (i.e., Type A-1). Note that there were 105 weekend
days in total, and after data preprocessing, 97 days were considered
initially. Moreover, as mentioned in section 3.2.1, completely un-
occupied days were omitted for the Level 2 clustering analysis.
Thus, out of 97 weekend days, only 59 days were considered for the
analysis. The clustering analysis’s main inference is that out of 59
occupied weekend days, 30 days belonged to cluster 3 (12 days) and
cluster 4 (18 days). Further analyzing the distribution of days based
on the season, most of the days in cluster 3 (75% of the days) and
cluster 4 (78% of the days) belonged to autumn and winter. Besides,
it is understood that 29 weekend days (out of 97 days) in summer
and spring were completely unoccupied. This shows that on the
weekends during summer and spring apartment 4 was unoccupied
for the majority of the time, and during autumn, winter, the
occupant follows the patterns of clusters 3 and 4. Considering the
lesser number of weekend days in each cluster, similar procedure,
the results of normalized occupant activity schedule, and presence
probability for apartment 4 are not presented in the paper.
K. Panchabikesan, F. Haghighat and M.E. Mankibi Energy 218 (2021) 119539

0 20 40 60 80 500 540 580

600
400
Plug power (Wh)

200
80

Occupant movement
40
0

60
Lighting energy (Wh)

0 20
560

CO2 (PPM)
500

51
RH (%)

49
47
200 400 600 0 20 40 60 47 48 49 50 51

Fig. 13. Pair plot showing the correlation between the each considered parameters.

Table 6
Results of linear regression models with the hour of the day as one of the predictor variables.

Apartment Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5

Adjusted R2 MAPE Adjusted R2 MAPE Adjusted R2 MAPE Adjusted R2 MAPE Adjusted R2 MAPE

1 0.94 0.12 0.94 0.13 0.94 0.46 0.93 0.13 0.95 0.26
2 0.92 0.21 0.92 0.22 0.91 0.23 0.90 0.23 0.95 0.21
3 0.72 0.33 0.71 0.30 0.23 0.48 0.25 0.50 0.82 0.25
4 0.66 0.36 0.58 0.42 0.28 0.56 0.30 0.56 0.82 0.27
5 0.88 0.17 0.85 0.19 0.84 0.25 0.80 0.25 0.93 0.15
6 0.87 0.16 0.87 0.17 0.83 0.23 0.83 0.21 0.90 0.18
7 0.90 0.18 0.87 0.23 0.89 0.50 0.85 0.24 0.93 0.36

Table 7
Prediction results of occupant presence/absence state.

Apartment Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4

MC error AU ROC MC error AU ROC MC error AU ROC MC error AU ROC

1 0.29 0.81 0.13 0.88 0.10 0.90 0.18 0.64

2 0.53 0.67 0.21 0.76 0.20 0.62 0.28 0.49
3 0.28 0.79 0.17 0.90 0.17 0.84 0.32 0.52
4 0.25 0.81 0.28 0.76 0.23 0.80 0.28 0.48
5 0.36 0.78 0.10 0.92 0.10 0.88 0.12 0.57
6 0.40 0.75 0.14 0.87 0.17 0.69 0.35 0.59
7 0.22 0.82 0.32 0.71 0.30 0.64 0.45 0.49

4.2. Prediction results of the statistical models (regression analysis)
4.2.1. Prediction of occupant activity level
Table 5 shows the occupant activity schedule’s prediction results
in terms of adjusted R2 and MAPE for each model. It can be seen
from the adjusted R2, and MAPE (%) values that lighting (Model 1),
plug load energy consumption data (Model 2) predicted the
occupant activity level good enough compared to CO2 (Model 3)
and RH data (Model 4). This can be explained by referring to Fig. 13,
which is a pair plot that depicts the correlation between each
parameter. For the illustration purpose, Fig. 13 is plotted by
considering the parameters recorded in Apartment 1. The figure
clearly shows the linear relation exists between the lighting, plug
load energy consumption and the number of occupant movements.

13
K. Panchabikesan, F. Haghighat and M.E. Mankibi
Fig. 14. Confusion matrix.
As shown in the red box, the plug load and lighting energy con-
sumption increased as the occupant movement increased. How-
ever, such a linear relation is not found between CO2, RH, and
number of occupant movement data.
Though there is a linear relation between the energy con-
sumption and occupant movement data, the values of adjusted R2
and MAPE for models 1 and 2 do not seem good enough to repre-
sent the occupant activity level in the considered apartments.
Hence, along with the predictor variable(s), the day’s hour is
included in the respective models to check whether there is an
improvement in adjusted R2 and MAPE results, and the obtained
results are presented in Table 6. As seen in Table 6, the prediction
results increased for all the predictor variables in terms of adjusted
R2 and MAPE values. The advantage of considering the hour of the
day along with the logged parameter(s) while predicting the hourly
average occupant activity level on a daily basis is further explained
with an example (Figure S6) of the supplementary document.
Overall, the lighting energy consumption data possessed better
prediction results, followed by the plug load energy consumption
dataset. An interesting observation is made from Tables 5 and 6 For
apartments 3 and 4, the adjusted R2 and MAPE values are relatively
less even after the inclusion of the hourly variable with the
particular predictor variable. The possible reason for this could be a
very consistent occupant schedule followed in these apartments
compared to others. Because of the routine occupant activity
schedule (as shown in Figs. 10 and 11), the impact of the hourly
variable gets neglected, and the variation between the prediction
results with and without the consideration of hour of the day is less.
In Table 6, model 5 is developed by considering all the parameters
(hour, lighting, plug load energy consumption data, CO2, RH data)
together as the predictor variables. When comparing the prediction
results of Model 1 and Model 5, the variation between the adjusted
R2 values is lesser or even negligible except the apartments 3 and 4.
Compared to model 5, model 1 possessed better results in terms of
14
Energy 218 (2021) 119539
MAPE. Thus, it is construed from the results that in the absence of a
heterogeneous dataset, lighting energy consumption along with
the hour of the day variable can be used to predict the occupant
activity level in residential buildings.
4.2.2. Prediction of occupant presence/absence state
The logistic regression model prediction results in terms of
misclassification (MC) error and AUROC using different parame-
ter(s) are presented in Table 7. The inference from the table is that
in all the apartments, Model 2 (plug load energy consumption data)
and Model 3 (CO2 data) predicted the occupant presence status well
compared to Model 1 (lighting energy data) and Model 4 (RH data).
This is evident from the lesser misclassification error and higher
AUROC values of Model 2 and 3. This can be further explained by
the fact that if the occupants are present at home, they tend to use
electrical appliances. This increases the total energy consumption,
and this value deviates from the base energy consumption (i.e.,
energy consumption value recorded when there is no occupant at
home). As an example, the confusion matrix and ROC curve ob-
tained for each model concerning apartment 1 are shown in Figs. 14
and 15, respectively. The inference from Fig. 14 is that compared to
all the other models, Model 3 predicted both the occupant presence
and absence status good enough, which is evident from the true
positive and true negative rates. Fig. 15 shows that Model 3 pos-
sesses a much steeper and higher AUROC value compared to other
models. Though Model 4 had a low misclassification error (0.18),
the value of AUROC is relatively lesser (0.64) compared to other
models. This means the ability of the model to predict the occupant
presence/absence state is low. The inference from Table 7 is that the
above-said explanation applies to all the other apartments. Thus,
consideration of the RH data set for occupant present/absent state
prediction is not recommended.
K. Panchabikesan, F. Haghighat and M.E. Mankibi
Fig. 15. ROC plot and AUROC values for different logistic regression models.
5. Main outcomes, findings and clarifications on the
contribution of the study
This study aims to address two research questions in analyzing
occupancy in residential buildings; (1) upon the availability of
occupant data, how to systematically extract the temporal based
occupant patterns, (2) when the occupant related data is not
available, what are the other alternative parameters that could be
possibly used to represent occupancy in residential buildings. The
outcomes of the developed framework are hourly occupant activity
schedule and occupant presence probability, respectively. The re-
sults presented may apply to the apartments considered in this
study. It is to be mentioned that the interest of the study is to
exemplify the variations associated with the occupancy in resi-
dential buildings and to emphasize why the default occupant
schedules should not be considered in building energy simulations.
However, the main question is the generalizability of the developed
data-driven framework. As mentioned in section 3.2.2, the study is
focused on extracting the occupant schedules from the group of
buildings at an urban scale rather than the individual buildings.
Upon the availability of data at the urban scale, the proposed
methodology can be used on ’n’ number of buildings, and the
distinctive occupant schedules with temporal variations can be
extracted. Especially when the data is available on the district scale,
it is not recommended to analyze each building separately, and in
such a scenario, the proposed framework can be used. The pro-
cedure remains the same irrespective of the number of buildings.
15
Energy 218 (2021) 119539
Besides, the main hindrance for occupant related data avail-
ability, especially in residential buildings, is the need for costly
motion detection sensors. The installation of motion sensors with a
wide area coverage range in all the buildings is impractical because
of their higher cost, and in general, the occupant is reluctant to
install them because of privacy concerns. On the other hand, the
energy consumption data in almost all buildings are monitored by
energy suppliers, and most of the newly built/retrofitted buildings
are equipped with indoor CO2 and RH sensors to maintain a good
indoor environment. This makes easier access to energy and indoor
related data easier compared to the real-time occupancy data.
Considering the wide availability, the parameters such as energy
use data, indoor CO2, and RH data could represent occupancy in
buildings. However, the occupancy representativeness of these
parameters is unclear. Accordingly, regression analysis is per-
formed, and the insights on the statistical significance of such pa-
rameters are presented. Along with the above-mentioned datasets,
recently, new data sources such as WIFI signals, GPS/mobile loca-
tion data, and location-based data are considered as occupancy
information. However, most of the studies that considered the new
occupant’s related data source was related to restaurants and retail
shops. The use of these data to generate the occupant schedules in
residential buildings are yet to be explored.
6. Conclusion
In this study, a generic data-driven framework is proposed to
K. Panchabikesan, F. Haghighat and M.E. Mankibi
explore the distinct occupant schedule and the presence proba-
bility from a group of residential buildings. For the analysis, a high-
resolution dataset collected from a group of apartments that
belonged to a small district located in Lyon, France, was used. The k-
Shape clustering and change point detection method are used to
derive the occupancy related information from the raw data
collected from BEMS. The clustering was done at two levels, where
the level 1 clustering was performed to identify and group the
apartments with similar occupant schedules over the year. The
level 2 clustering was performed to explore the distinct occupant
patterns with the clusters. In this way, occupant activity schedules
and presence probability of ’n’ number of buildings at the city level
can be explored on an hourly basis. The inference from the
extracted patterns is that the occupant schedule in a building might
vary daily and seasonal, and these variations should be considered
in energy simulations. Ignoring the variations associated with the
occupant schedules and consideration of the default occupant
schedule irrespective of the day of the week and different seasons
while evaluating the building energy use performance and energy
simulations will lead to uncertainty in the building performance
simulation.
Also, the significance of other parameters such as lighting, plug
load energy consumption data, CO2, RH data on representing the
occupant schedule, and presence/absence state were analyzed us-
ing regression models. The regression analysis indicates that the
inclusion of the hour of the day as one of the predictor variables
along with the other parameters appreciably increased the pre-
diction results in terms of both adjusted R2 and MAPE values.
However, for the apartments with a very consistent occupant
schedule (for most of the days in a week), the impact of considering
the hour of the day as the predictor variable gets diminished. For
the prediction of occupant activity level, the lighting energy con-
sumption data followed by plug load energy consumption data
showed better results. On the other hand, CO2 and plug load energy
consumption data showed better results in misclassification error
and AUROC while predicting the occupant presence/absence state
and are recommended over the lighting energy consumption, RH
data.
Credit author statement
Karthik Panchabikesan: Conceptualization, Formal analysis,
Formal analysis, Writing e original draft, Reviewing and Validation.
Fariborz Haghighat: Conceptualization, Supervision, Formal anal-
ysis, Writing e review & editing, Validation, Funding acquisition.
Mohamed El Mankibi: Providing the data, Writing e review &
editing.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgment
The authors express their gratitude to Concordia University for
the support provided through the HORIZON postdoc fellowship
program.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2020.119539.
16
Energy 218 (2021) 119539
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