Load Prediction Algorithm Applied with Indoor Environment Sensing in University Buildings

Recently, building automation system (BAS) and building energy management system (BEMS) technologies have been applied to efficiently reduce the energy consumption of buildings. In addition, studies on utilizing large quantities of building data have been actively conducted using artificial intelligence and machine learning. However, the high cost and installation difficulties limit the use of measuring devices to sense the indoor environment of all buildings. Therefore, this study developed a comprehensive indoor environment sensor module with relatively inexpensive sensors to measure the indoor environment of a university building. In addition, an algorithm for predicting the load in real time through machine learning based on indoor environment measurement is proposed. When the reliability of the algorithm for predicting the number of occupants and load according to the indoor CO2 concentration was quantitatively assessed, the mean squared error (MSE), root mean square deviation (RMSD), and mean absolute error (MAE) were calculated to be 23.1, 4.8, and 2.5, respectively, indicating the high accuracy of the algorithm. Since the sensor used in this study is economical and can be easily applied to existing buildings, it is expected to be favorable for the dissemination of load prediction technology.