Short-term forecasting of residential building load for distributed energy management

It is expected that energy management systems (EMS) on the demand side can be used as a method for enhancing the capability of balancing supply and demand of a power system under the anticipated increase of renewable energy generation such as photovoltaics (PV). Energy demand and solar radiation must be predicted in order to realize the optimal operation scheduling of demand side appliances by EMS, including heat pump water heaters, PV systems, and solar powered water heaters. This paper presents a day-ahead forecasting method for electricity consumption in a house to contribute to energy management. Ten forecasting methods are examined using real survey data from 35 households over a year in order to verify forecast accuracy. A daily battery operation model is also developed to evaluate the effect of load forecasts.