Transfer learning for cross-building forecasting of building energy and indoor air temperature in model predictive control applications
Bibliographic record
Abstract
When applying Model Predictive Control (MPC) for Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems in buildings, accurate forecasting of short-term energy demand and indoor air condition profiles is essential. However, new or retrofitted buildings lack sufficient operation data to develop precise data-driven models. This study investigates transfer learning techniques to enhance the forecasting performance of black-box models under limited data conditions. Specifically, we leverage synthetic data from an open-source EnergyPlus building model to pre-train three neural network models, which are then transferred to a real building and fine-tuned with limited measurements. The results indicate that incorporating synthetic data into the pre-training phase significantly enhances the forecasting accuracy for building and HVAC energy, as well as indoor air temperature profiles, over a 12-hour horizon with 15-minute intervals. The study underscores the potential of combining transfer learning with synthetic data to address data limitations, extending the applicability of learning-based MPC in real-world buildings.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".