A Comparative Study of Building Energy Consumption Prediction Methods

Continued usage of fossil fuel-based electricity generation is one of the main factors for the greenhouse effect. As the greenhouse effect increase, the ambient temperature of the earth will also increase. As the temperature increase, the usage of air conditioning in buildings is also expected to increase. Since that more than 50 % of building energy consumption goes to air conditioning, it is utterly important to look into the methods that can be used to predict the impact of variations in temperature towards building energy consumption. This paper hence tries to perform a conceptual review on the prevalent methods that have been used for prediction of energy consumption, grouped in the category known as the white box, grey box and black box. The comparison of the different methods used in forecasting of energy consumption is discussed in terms of application, input, specific approach, advantage and disadvantage. It is hoped that the work carried out in this paper will be the reference to jump start the research work of others in this field of study.