Development of a Coupled EnergyPlus-MATLAB Simulation Based on LSTM for Predictive Control of HVAC System

To avoid unnecessary energy waste due to the single temperature setpoints of the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system during the seasonal variation period, this study proposed a long-short-term memory (LSTM) neural network to predict and control the temperature setpoint. The thermal comfort, cooling rate, and heating rate were predicted with outdoor environment parameters and occupant count. A large scale of operation data was collected from the EnergyPlus simulation, which was previously developed based on the characteristics of a real case study house. Different kinds of input characteristics were offered to test the stable use of LSTM and other artificial neural networks. This paper discusses the development of a Matlab EnergyPlus co-simulation to predict and control the temperature setpoints of a variable air volume system, especially the relationship between temperature setpoint and energy consumption. The simulation results indicate the advantages of the LSTM prediction of energy consumption and the potential for energy saving with predictive control.