Comparative review of hybrid forecasting models for short-term prediction of building thermal load

Nikolaos A. Efkarpidis, Despoina Kothona, Georgios C. Christoforidis

In this paper, a comparative review of different hybrid models for short-term forecasting of building thermal demand is carried out. Particularly, the assessment tackles the comparison of data-driven models enhanced with other state-of-the-art techniques. At the first step, the existing techniques reported in the literature are analysed. It is concluded that Metaheuristics or a data-driven model are used to identify the parameters of the basic model. The qualitative evaluation includes for each method the input and output features, main advantages and drawbacks. At the second step, an existing dataset of historical thermal demand from Scottish households, as well as historical weather forecasts are utilized to assess additionally the performance of existing hybrid methods. From the assessment of 13 hybrid methods, the Empirical Modal Decomposition - long short-term memory - Markov (EMD-LSTM-Markov) model can predict with the highest accuracy the day-ahead power pattern of heating and domestic hot water (DHW) demands. Though local power peaks are also accurately predicted, high power swells and spikes are underestimated. Other methods, such as Support Vector Machine - Simulated…