Analyzing and Forecasting Electrical Load Consumption in Healthcare Buildings

Healthcare buildings exhibit a different electrical load predictability depending on their size and nature. Large hospitals behave similarly to small cities, whereas primary care centers are expected to have different consumption dynamics. In this work, we jointly analyze the electrical load predict...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Rodolfo Gordillo-Orquera, Luis Miguel Lopez-Ramos, Sergio Muñoz-Romero, Paz  Iglesias-Casarrubios, Diego Arcos-Avilés, Antonio G. Marques, José Luis Rojo-Álvarez
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2018-02-01
Series:Energies
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/11/3/493
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Summary:Healthcare buildings exhibit a different electrical load predictability depending on their size and nature. Large hospitals behave similarly to small cities, whereas primary care centers are expected to have different consumption dynamics. In this work, we jointly analyze the electrical load predictability of a large hospital and that of its associated primary care center. An unsupervised load forecasting scheme using combined classic methods of principal component analysis (PCA) and autoregressive (AR) modeling, as well as a supervised scheme using orthonormal partial least squares (OPLS), are proposed. Both methods reduce the dimensionality of the data to create an efficient and low-complexity data representation and eliminate noise subspaces. Because the former method tended to underestimate the load and the latter tended to overestimate it in the large hospital, we also propose a convex combination of both to further reduce the forecasting error. The analysis of data from 7 years in the hospital and 3 years in the primary care center shows that the proposed low-complexity dynamic models are flexible enough to predict both types of consumption at practical accuracy levels.
ISSN:1996-1073