Comparative Evaluation of Control-Oriented Zone Temperature Prediction Modeling Strategies in Buildings

Predictive modeling of zone environment plays a critical role in developing and deploying advanced performance monitoring and control strategies for energy usage minimization in buildings while maintaining occupant comfort. The task remains extremely challenging, as buildings are fundamentally complex systems with large uncertainties stemming from weather, occupants, and building dynamics. Over the past few years, purely data-driven various control-oriented modeling techniques have been proposed to address different requirements, such as prediction accuracy, flexibility, computation and memory complexity. In this context, this paper presents a comparative evaluation among representative methods of different classes of models, such as first principles driven (e.g., lumped parameter autoregressive models using simple physical relationships), data-driven (e.g., artificial neural networks, Gaussian processes) and hybrid (e.g., semi-parametric). Apart from quantitative metrics described above, various qualitative aspects such as cost of commissioning, robustness and adaptability are discussed as well. Real data from Iowa Energy Center’s Energy Resource Station (ERS) test bed is used as the basis of evaluation presented here.