HALO: HVAC Load Forecasting With Industrial IoT and Local–Global-Scale Transformer

The evolution of Internet of Things (IoT) is fostering the use of intelligent controls for energy conservation. Yet, the efficacy of these strategies is largely tied to diverse load forecasting algorithms. Given the significant contribution of heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems to global energy consumption, accurate forecasting of HVAC power usage is crucial for improving overall energy efficiency. However, real-world HVAC load forecasting, bolstered by various IoT devices, is complicated by multiple factors: data variability, power load fluctuations, electronic phenomena (e.g., zero drifts), and the increased time complexity and larger model sizes required to manage accumulating historical data. To address these challenges, we first present an in-depth measurement study on the characteristics of HVAC load at a minute scale based on the HVAC data collected in six locations. We propose HALO, a transformer-based framework specifically designed for forecasting HVAC load. HALO incorporates an adaptive data preprocessing stage and a local–global-scale transformer-based load forecasting stage, enabling precise forecasting of HVAC load and optimization of energy utilization. Evaluation based on real-world data traces from a prototype application demonstrates that the proposed framework significantly outperforms existing models.