Principal component analysis of electricity use in office buildings

Principal component analysis was conducted on five major climatic variables—dry-bulb temperature, wet-bulb temperature, global solar radiation, clearness index and wind speed. Twenty-eight year (1996–2000) long-term measured weather data were considered. A two-component solution was obtained, which could explain 80% of the variance in the original weather data. Monthly electricity consumption data recorded during a 5-year period (1979–2006) were gathered from 20 fully air-conditioned office buildings with centralised HVAC systems in subtropical Hong Kong. Electricity use per unit gross floor area ranged from 163 to 389 kWh/m2. These consumption data were correlated with the corresponding principal components using linear multiple regression techniques. The coefficient of determination (R2) varied from 0.76 to 0.95 indicating reasonably strong correlation. It was found that the regression models developed could give a reasonably good indication (mostly within 3%) of the annual electricity use, but the monthly estimates might differ from the actual consumption by up to 9%. Attempt was also made to develop a general regression model for the 20 buildings, which had an R2 of 0.84 with a maximum mean-biased error of 18.6% and a maximum root-mean-square error of 21.4%.