Attention mechanism-aided model ensemble method of chiller energy consumption prediction

Abstract

The chiller energy consumption prediction plays an important role in reducing the building energy consumption. Continuously improving the performance of the prediction model is the key to ensuring the accuracy of the chiller energy consumption prediction. As a result, a new improved ensemble model of the chiller energy consumption prediction is proposed, based on the idea of algorithmic ensemble aided by an attention mechanism (AM). To guarantee that the proposed model can see information from many spatial and structural viewpoints, the improved ensemble model incorporates the benefits of several base prediction methods. The suggested approach chooses crucial features to simplify the model input by utilizing AM, thereby reducing the complexity of the samples. The improved ensemble model was experimentally verified in an actual multi-chiller system, and the results showed that the established model could obtain good prediction results. Finally, the proposed model was compared with existing, well-known prediction models. To evaluate the accuracy of these models, the mean absolute error (MAE), mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), mean square error (MSE), variance accounted for (VAF), and coefficient of determination (R2) were used as the evaluation indices. With an MAE of 2.858, an MAPE of 1.2755%, an MSE of 20.1878, a VAF of 93.6058, and an R2 of 0.9923, the findings demonstrate that the improved ensemble model has a greater prediction accuracy than the other well-known prediction methods. The suggested model enhances the variety of empirical model algorithm libraries.