A new workflow for load forecasting in planning areas: Considering uncertainties in building scenarios

Abstract

Urban Building Energy Model (UBEM) is a widely used method for load forecasting in urban energy planning. It typically depends on reference buildings to simplify particular scenarios and uses energy calculation software for load forecasting. However, significant challenges exist when using this approach in unbuilt areas, because there is no established distribution of buildings or a widely recognized database of reference buildings. To overcome this technical barrier, this paper introduces a new workflow - Scenario Urban Building Energy Model (S-UBEM). This approach utilizes publicly available databases to establish a reference building database and a stochastic human behavior database. By utilizing these databases and planning documents, the methodology can construct building energy use scenarios for the undeveloped area, ultimately achieving load forecasting. In this paper, the proposed method is validated by transforming the built-up area into an unbuilt state. The results demonstrate that S-UBEM more accurately represents the spatial and temporal distribution of energy consumption. This is evidenced by a 28.3 % reduction in the annual energy prediction error compared to the conventional method, as well as by visualizing the distribution of energy consumption at the building level.