Research Projects and Areas Undertaken by the Unit

Other Research Projects

Research Title: An Intelligent Building Classification System for Commercial Buildings in Singapore
Research Title: Energy Performance of Data Centres
Research Title: Baseline Model Development for Commercial Office Buildings in the Tropics
Research Title: Development of Total Building Performance Assessment System for Office Buildings

Research Title: Baseline Model Development for Commercial Office Buildings in the Tropics

The baseline model is an essential prediction tool for determining energy savings by comparing pre-retrofit and after retrofit energy use of building facilities. The main objectives of this study are to develop a holistic baseline model for whole building energy consumption and new methodologies for baselining landlord energy consumption in the tropics.

Twelve commercial buildings in Singapore are involved in this research. The widely used single variant and multiple linear regression analysis methods are evaluated on the whole building energy consumption level. The results show that weather conditions may account for more than 85% of the changes in whole building energy consumption. In addition, the Neural Networks method is applied to the prediction of landlord energy consumption and is proved to have a good prediction on the annual basis. However, its tracking performance on the monthly basis is not as good. A new method, called Support Vector Machines (SVMs), is developed for better baseline models of landlord energy consumption. The results show that the prediction coefficients of variance (CV) from SVMs are all below 3% and the mean absolute errors (MAE) are below 4%. The results play a significant role in improving energy use prediction of energy retrofit projects, and in particular, the promotion of performance contracting services in the industry.

Output

Figure 1 Results of Simple Linear Regression Model

Building

Annual Energy Use (kWh/m 2 /month)

MAE (%)

CV

VAR(Model)

(kWh/m 2 /month)

90%PI (%)

 

Measured

Modeled

 

 

 

 

A

20.26

20.59

1.64

3.80

1.35

10.06

B

32.87

32.09

2.42

2.78

2.60

2.9

C

28.59

24.22

15.33

3.49

29.79

48.15

D

25.55

25.76

0.8

3.76

2.05

2.59

E

18.81

18.34

2.5

3.32

2.83

3.04

Figure 2 Results of Multivariate Regression Model

Building Name

Baseline Year

Prediction Year

MAE(%)

CV(%)

VAR

PI

 

 

SR

MLR

SR

MLR

SR

MLR

SR

MLR

SR

MLR

F

23.52

24.11

24.14

2.51

2.63

7.11

5.18

3.96

2.05

4.15

3.30

G

30.31

28.63

30.35

-5.53

0.14

8.26

3.97

8.90

2.05

5.72

3.72

H

22.86

23.66

23.66

7.44

3.49

12.63

11.37

13.44

9.71

6.73

5.90

Figure 3 Results of Neural Networks and Support Vector Machines

Building

Ref. No.

Actual Value

(kWh/month/m 2)

Neuron Numbers in The Hidden Layer/Predicted Consumption

8

9

10

MSE

Prediction

CV (%)

 

MAE (%)

G

10.55

10.39

 

 

0.78

9.67

-1.5

H

11.05

 

 

11.12

3.83

15.5

0.64

I

9.54

 

 

10.23

1.58

15.12

7.33

J

12.59

 

11.82

 

2.38

14.17

-6.2

Figure 4 Results of Support Vector Machines

Benefits of the Research Works for Commercial and Industrial Use

  • Develop a new method for baselining landlord energy consumption
  • Provide a standard utility bill analysis method for the commercial buildings in Singapore
  • Provoke the blooming of the energy services companies in the tropical region
  • Provoke the development of energy performance contracting in Singapore

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