Community load prediction: methodology and a case study

As an important part of green eco-community planning, reasonable community energy planning requires accurate community load prediction. Hence, this paper focuses on the method of community load prediction. Given that community energy planning has great uncertainty and forward-looking requirements, this paper proposes an integrated method of buildings load prediction, which combines building simulation and scenario analysis. We apply scenario analysis to avoid simply adding up the loads which leads to overestimation. Establishment and calibration of the prototypical models are carried out. Using the proposed method, a case study is conducted to predict the cooling and heating load of a CBD in Shanghai. The results show that the energy system operates at relatively low efficiency and adjustment of area ratio of different building types is suggested.