Physical and JIT model based hybrid modeling approach for building thermal load prediction

Energy conservation in building fields is one of the key issues in environmental point of view as well as that of industrial, transportation and residential fields. The half of the total energy consumption in a building is occupied by HVAC (Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning) systems. In order to realize energy conservation of HVAC system, a thermal load prediction model for building is required. This paper propose a hybrid modeling approach with physical and Just-in-Time (JIT) model for building thermal load prediction. The proposed method has features and benefits such as, (1) it is applicable to the case in which past operation data for load prediction model learning is poor, (2) it has a self checking function, which always supervises if the data driven load prediction and the physical based one are consistent or not, so it can find if something is wrong in load prediction procedure, (3) it has ability to adjust load prediction in real-time against sudden change of model parameters and environmental conditions. The proposed method is evaluated with real operation data of an existing building, and the improvement of load prediction performance is illustrated.