Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
6-2024
Abstract
Advances in machine learning and increased computational power have driven progress in energy-related research. However, limited access to private energy data from buildings hinders traditional regression models relying on historical data. While generative models offer a solution, previous studies have primarily focused on short-term generation periods (e.g., daily profiles) and a limited number of meters. Thus, the study proposes a conditional diffusion model for generating high-quality synthetic energy data using relevant metadata. Using a dataset comprising 1,828 power meters from various buildings and countries, this model is compared with traditional methods like Conditional Generative Adversarial Networks (CGAN) and Conditional Variational Auto-Encoders (CVAE). It explicitly handles long-term annual consumption profiles, harnessing metadata such as location, weather, building, and meter type to produce coherent synthetic data that closely resembles real-world energy consumption patterns. The results demonstrate the proposed diffusion model's superior performance, with a 36% reduction in Fréchet Inception Distance (FID) score and a 13% decrease in Kullback-Leibler divergence (KL divergence) compared to the following best method. The proposed method successfully generates high-quality energy data through metadata, and its code will be open-sourced, establishing a foundation for a broader array of energy data generation models in the future.
Keywords
Generative models, Building energy, Smart meter, Deep learning, Diffusion model, Computer vision
Discipline
Energy Policy | Engineering
Research Areas
Integrative Research Areas
Publication
Energy and Buildings
Volume
312
First Page
1
Last Page
14
ISSN
0378-7788
Identifier
10.1016/j.enbuild.2024.114216
Publisher
Elsevier
Citation
FU, Chun; KAZMI, Hussain; QUINTANA, Matias; and MILLER, Clayton.
Creating synthetic energy meter data using conditional diffusion and building metadata. (2024). Energy and Buildings. 312, 1-14.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cis_research/561
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2024.114216