The Application of Feed - Forward Neural Network Architecture for Improving Energy Efficiency

Abstract

The energy sector contributes approximately two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions. In this context, the sector must adapt to new supply and demand networks for all future energy sources. The ongoing transformation in the European energy field is driven by the ambition of the European Union to reach the climate objectives set for 2030. The main actions are increasing renewable energy production, adapting transition fuels like natural gas to reduce emissions, improving energy efficiency across all economic sectors, prioritizing building, transportation, and industry, developing Carbon Capture and Storage technologies, and ensuring universal access to clean and affordable energy. The significant changes envisaged in the energy sector to increase renewable energy production and consumption require improved integration and more use of predictive tools to support stakeholders' decision-making processes. This article presents a case study to assess the performance of predictive models based on a Feed-Forward Neural Network architecture that employ Root Mean Squared Propagation as their optimization function in terms of choosing the most appropriate activation function for this kind of data input and output. The training and testing phases of the models use data about building energy consumption. The lowest training time and Root Mean Square Error values were similar for Rectified Linear Unit and Tanh activation functions. The model with the Rectified linear Unit activation function performed best.