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Forecasting of Energy Consumption : Artificial Intelligence Methods

Conference Paper · June 2022

DOI: 10.23919/CISTI54924.2022.9820078

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 Forecasting of Energy Consumption
Artificial Intelligence Methods
Tiago C. Brito
Information Systems Department
School of Engineering
University of Minho
Guimarães, Portugal
tiagobrito09@gmail.com
Abstract — Currently, energy consumption is one of the most
important research areas in the world. The growing need to
increase energy efficiency and improve the use of energy sources
brings the need for better energy management and forecasting
models. Therefore, forecasting energy consumption has become
crucial for estimating energy consumption, as it provides both
environmental and especially economic benefits. Forecasting is an
integral part of business decision-making processes. The growing
needs for greater energy efficiency and better use of energy
sources bring out the need for better energy management and
forecasting models. This article seeks to find the most suitable
energy consumption prediction model through a review of studies
that have developed data-based building energy consumption
prediction models, with a particular focus on the machine learning
algorithms used for prediction and some performance measures
used for evaluation.
Keywords – energy consumption; energy forecasting; Artificial
Intelligence; Machine Learning.
I. INTRODUCTION
Industry, transport, and buildings are the three main sectors
of the economy with the highest energy consumption, where
buildings represent the most significant percentage [1]. Due to
the increasing energy consumption in buildings, the
management and control of this energy consumption take on a
vital role to allow for flexibility and thus reduce unnecessary
consumption and energy bill expenses [2].
The purchase and sale of energy are one of the fundamental
aspects of the good performance of any electricity supplier, and
the forecasting of the energy needs of its set of customers is
necessary for this purchase to be carried out. The use of
predictive models to forecast electricity consumption at a certain
time in the future will be a differentiating factor because it will
anticipate unexpected events and also help eliminate possible
penalties that suppliers suffer due to the purchase of too much or
too little energy, which often leads to the payment of fines.
Therefore, by forecasting energy consumption, any electricity
supplier will make substantial gains in the purchase and sale of
energy.
The main objective of this paper is to conduct a literature
review of intelligent approaches used to predict energy
consumption to find the best method to predict this type of
consumption. This paper is organized as follows: Section II
describes the importance of energy consumption forecasting and
presents the two main types of models (conventional and
Miguel A. Brito
Centro Algoritmi
School of Engineering
University of Minho
Guimarães, Portugal
mab@dsi.uminho.pt
intelligent) and their characteristics. Section III presents several
Machine Learning approaches and some studies that used these
models. Section IV presents the conclusions of this paper.
II. FORECASTING ENERGY CONSUMPTION
Energy consumption is one of the most substantial
research areas in today’s world. The ever-increasing human
population, building constructions, and technology usage are
the most important factors that currently lead to increased
electric energy consumption. Therefore, it´s very important to
forecast energy consumption to manage energy more efficiently
and improve energy consumption performance, which brings
benefits to buildings and the consumers [3].
Forecasting energy consumption has become crucial
for estimating energy usage. As well as providing
environmental benefits, building energy efficiency can provide
great economic benefits [4]. Forecasting is an integral part of
business decision processes. The energy industry relies on
forecasters to forecast load, generation, prices, etc. These
forecasts are being used by all segments of the energy industry,
for planning and operations of both power systems and business
entities [5].
Currently, there are several models for predicting
energy consumption. Prediction and classification of energy
consumption in buildings, as the essential approaches
transmitting to energy efficiency, are significantly necessary
with the aim to improve building performance, reduce
environmental impact, and estimate the economical potential
for further energy conservation and renewable energy scheme
[6]. These models can be generally categorized into
conventional models and artificial intelligence (AI) based
models. Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages
for different types of applications. Among these methods, AI
has gained the most attention of numerous researchers, due to
its forecasting performance accuracy [7].
The conventional models such as the regression-based
approach and stochastic time series had been typically applied
before the rise of AI methods. Although these methods are easy
to develop and use, they can´t deal with the nonlinear pattern
and they lack flexibility [7]. The large error variation of
classical models can significantly affect the planning and
operation of the energy system. It can be the reason for a large
amount of financial loss to the utility and the consumer [8].
 Nowadays, most researchers prefer to use AI methods
in the forecasting field, especially in electrical energy
consumption forecasting. Artificial Intelligence has shown its
capabilities and it has been proven that this method is better
than the conventional methods in the forecasting field.
One of the strengths of these methods based on
Artificial Intelligence is that they can deal with nonlinear
patterns [7]. These types of methods are more robust and full-
scale in all applied areas and forecasting horizons than
conventional models [9].
III. MACHINE LEARNING APPROACHES
When we discuss AI models it is also crucial to talk
about Machine Learning (ML). ML is a sub-field of AI and
computer sciences that has evolved from pattern recognition to
analyse the data structure and fit it into models that users can
understand and replicate. Figure 1 explains all the ML
categories, methods, and models applicable to energy-related
projects, considering the standard approaches and definitions of
different authors.
ML is classified into four categories: Supervised
Learning (SL), Unsupervised Learning (UL), Reinforcement
Learning (RL), and Deep Learning (DL). SL and UL categories
aim to predict or describe the existing relationships within the
data set and being called supervised when the dependent
variable is available and unsupervised when it is not. The UL
methods are mainly responsible for customer segmentation,
buildings efficiency clustering, and consumption profile
grouping for non-technical losses detection. RL is a
computational approach that learns from the interaction with
the environment, which means defining how system agents can
take actions in their environment to maximize the cumulative
reward. DL belongs to the Artificial Neural Networks (ANN)
field, and they are an extensive family of techniques in multiple
domains, which can be applied to both Supervised and
Unsupervised Learning. DL algorithms have gained importance
in recent years for time series prediction tasks and outperform
the most benchmark and statistical algorithms [10].
Figure 1. Data-driven techniques classification and Machine Learning
categories for energy systems analysis and prediction [10].
These AI/ML models can be classified into three
important categories, which are single model, ensemble model,
and hybrid model. The single models use only one learning
algorithm and are the best choice for users who would like to
promptly estimate the energy consumption of buildings; the
ensemble models include multiple prediction models and are
the best for users who know the machine learning techniques
[4]. The ensemble model has a very effective prediction result
which indicates that this model is effective for addressing the
problem of day-ahead industrial demand forecasting [11]; the
hybrid models combine two or more machine learning
techniques, and they are the best for users who have a deep
knowledge of AI techniques and highly need accuracy [4].
A very important method, Artificial Neural Networks
(ANNs) is the most broadly applied artificial intelligence
method in the buildings ‘performance field due to its
competence to handle nonlinear variables’ relationships
accurately and promptly. These types of models have an
average error percentage lower than the general average [12].
ANN has more efficiency over other techniques due to its
ability to adapt and learn nonlinear associations between
different factors. ANN is proven to give forecast results with
the least error, this could significantly enhance the economic
use of energy [8]. In their study, N. Truong [13] purpose an
additive artificial neural network (AANNs) for predicting
energy use in residential buildings. They concluded that the
AANNs model was the most effective forecasting model among
the investigated models, Support Vector Regression (SVR) and
ANN in predicting energy consumption, which provides
building managers with a useful tool to improve energy
efficiency in buildings. The AANNs model was recommended
as an effective AI-based model for predicting net energy
consumption in residential buildings with a solar photovoltaic
system.
A study proposed by K.P. Amber [14], compared the
prediction capabilities of five different intelligent system
techniques by forecasting the electricity consumption of an
administration building located in London. These five
techniques were: Multiple Regression (MR), Genetic
Programming (GP), Artificial Neural Network (ANN), Deep
Neural Network (DNN), and Support Vector Machine (SVM).
The prediction models were developed based on five years of
observed data of five different parameters such as solar
radiation, temperature, wind speed, humidity, and weekday
index (this parameter differentiates between working and non-
working days). Results demonstrate that ANN performs better
than all other four techniques with a low MAPE of 6%. The
results of ANN and GP for median, second and third quartile
were very close to the actual values and these two methods
seem to perform better than others in overall prediction.
Another type of forecasting approach is using Load
Profiles (LP) which is performed using three levels (annual,
weekly, and daily). Short-term and mid-term load forecasting
models were developed using multiple Artificial Intelligence
techniques such as Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). The
main contribution of this approach is the historical load data to
create LP, which helped to understand consumer behaviours
and variations according to different time granularities [15].
An interesting ML model, Random Forest (RF) can
make predictions at a very high level of resolution without
losing quality in the results and very similar errors. With this
approach, it is possible to detect variations in the energy
demands resulting from variables not covered by
meteorological or socio-economic data. However, the error
increases with higher differences in time between the prediction
and the last observation, which shows a time limit in the
application of this kind of algorithm [16]. A new hybrid model
using SVR and RF presented by C. F. Fan [17] exploits the
insensitivity of the RF model to variables, greatly reducing the
forecasting error of the proposed model due to unstable noise in
the data and improving the generalizability of the proposed
model.
M. Gomez-Omella [18] presented an article about the
development of the forecasting models that are the main base
of the Energy Demand Forecasting service is addressed. And
subsequently, the degradation of the models during the COVID-
19 pandemic in Spain was analysed and an approach to mitigate
this situation was proposed. Were analysed 2 methods: K-
Nearest Features for Time Series (KNFTS) and a method based
on the recognition of similar patterns in the time series, K-
Nearest Patterns in Time Series (KNPTS). The results have
shown that the predictions are more accurate using the KNPTS
model. The EDR (Edit Distance for Real Sequence) value has
been the most effective measure to assess the accuracy and gets
lower values for all the cases. The COVID-19 pandemic
changed users’ electricity consumption habits, which led to the
degradation of the performance of forecast models. The results
have shown that the retraining of the models using only data
from the lockdown period, provides an average improvement of
6.67% in terms of EDR.
P.H. Kuo [19] presented a new load forecasting model
based on a deep learning network algorithm. The forecasting
accuracy of the proposed model was within the requested range,
and the model has the advantages of simplicity and high
forecasting performance. According to the results, the Deep
Energy (deep learning network algorithm) precisely predict
energy load in the next three days. In addition, the proposed
algorithm was compared with five AI algorithms: SVM, RF,
DT (Decision Tree), MLP (ANN type), and LSTM which were
commonly used in load forecasting. The comparison showed
that the performance of Deep Energy was the best among all
tested algorithms and had the lowest values of both Mean
Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) and Cumulative Variation
of Root Mean Square Error (CV-RMSE). According to all the
obtained results, the proposed method can reduce monitoring
expenses, the initial cost of hardware components, and long-
term maintenance costs.
A study proposed by X. Zhou [20], demonstrated a
new strategy that integrates Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM)
models and Reinforcement Learning (RL) with the self-
optimization capability to likely provide more reliable
prediction in daily electricity consumption and thus facilitate
building optimal operation and demand-side management. The
results showed when this model was applied to buildings with
large monthly variations in daily electricity consumption the
proposed strategy can increase the prediction accuracy.
However, when it was applied to the buildings with
insignificant monthly variations in the daily electricity
consumption, the prediction accuracy did not show an obvious
improvement when compared with the use of the LSTM models
alone. Another interesting approach to the LSTM model was
proposed [21]. In this study, was adopted the LSTM neural
network to capture the interrelationship between energy
consumption data and time, and a genetic algorithm (GA) was
adopted to select the optimal architecture for LSTM neural
networks to improve its forecasting accuracy and robustness.
The principal result obtained was that the GA algorithm is
effective and robust in searching for the optimal LSTM neural
network architecture.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
This paper reviewed previous research work on the use
of various types of ML models to predict energy consumption.
Between AI/ML and conventional methods, we concluded that
intelligent methods have more and better advantages and
therefore they are the most widely used methods today.
However, in general, it is challenging to conclude
which ML model is the best, as from literature it can be induced
that all models provide reasonable accuracy by supplying large
samples and optimising the hyper-parameters. So, it is
imperative to thoroughly analyse the nature of available or
collectable data and the application, to choose the most suitable
model. In fact, a selection of the appropriate features for each
model requires extensive research for each application, as it is
the preliminary requirement for the implementation of any ML
model [22]. Different models serve different purposes, have
different scopes, were trained on different datasets, and use
different features for prediction.
All the models have their own strengths and
weaknesses and perform differently under different
circumstances [23]. Thus, the best way to predict energy
consumption will require us to implement several models and
compare them through performance measures, to be able to
conclude which one will be the most suitable for our specific
case.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work has been supported by FCT – Fundação
para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project
Scope: UIDB/00319/2020.
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