Forecasting Power Demand in Complex Buildings Using Machine Learning: A Shopping Center Case Study

Abstract

Recent studies have focused on forecasting power demand in buildings to enhance energy management. However, the literature still lacks comparative analyses of power demand forecasting algorithms. In addition, more case studies involving different building typologies are needed, as each building exhibits distinct behavior and load profiles. This paper aims to develop machine learning models to forecast the power demand of a large shopping center in the northern region of Portugal. The main objective is to compare the performance of several machine learning models. The results are promising, demonstrating adequate performance even during most holidays.