Ant colony algorithm for building energy optimisation problems and comparison with benchmark algorithms

In this paper, Ant Colony Optimisation for continuous domain (ACOR) is developed and applied to optimise a commercial building in Australia. The results for a typical commercial building showed that optimisation can achieve an additional energy savings of more than 11.4%, even after some common energy saving measures were implemented (e.g. double pane windows). The performance of ACOR was compared to three benchmark optimisation algorithms: Nelder-Mead (NM) algorithm, Particle Swarm Optimisation with Inertia Weight (PSOIW) and the hybrid Particle Swarm Optimisation and Hooke-Jeeves (PSO-HJ). This comparison showed that ACOR was able to consistently find better solutions in less time than the benchmark algorithms. The findings demonstrate that ACOR can further facilitate the design of low-energy buildings.