Comparative Analysis of Machine Learning Algorithms for Building Archetypes Development in Urban Building Energy Modeling

The most common approach for urban building energy modeling (UBEM) involves segmenting a building stock into archetypes. Development Building archetypes for urban scale is a complex task and requires a lot of extensive data. The archetype development methodology proposed in this paper uses unsupervised machine learning approaches to identify similar clusters of buildings based on building specific features. The archetype development process considers four crucial processes of machine learning: data preprocessing, feature selection, clustering algorithm adaptation and results validation. The four different clustering algorithms investigated in this study are KMean, Hierarchical, Density-based, K-Medoids. All the algorithms are applied on Irish Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) that consist of 203 features. The obtained results are then used to compare and analyze the chosen algorithms with respect to performance, quality and cluster instances. The K-mean algorithm preforms the best in terms of cluster formation.