Big Data to support sustainable urban energy planning: The EvoEnergy project

Energy sustainability is a complex problem that needs to be tackled holistically by equally addressing other aspects such as socio-economic to meet the strict CO2 emission targets. This paper builds upon our previous work on the effect of household transition on residential energy consumption where we developed a 3D urban energy prediction system (EvoEnergy) using the old UK panel data survey, namely, the British household panel data survey (BHPS). In particular, the aim of the present study is to examine the validity and reliability of EvoEnergy under the new UK household longitudinal study (UKHLS) launched in 2009. To achieve this aim, the household transition and energy prediction modules of EvoEnergy have been tested under both data sets using various statistical techniques such as Chow test. The analysis of the results advised that EvoEnergy remains a reliable prediction system and had a good prediction accuracy (MAPE 5%) when compared to actual energy performance certificate data. From this premise, we recommend researchers, who are working on data-driven energy consumption forecasting, to consider merging the BHPS and UKHLS data sets. This will, in turn, enable them to capture the bigger picture of different energy phenomena such as fuel poverty; consequently, anticipate problems with policy prior to their occurrence. Finally, the paper concludes by discussing two scenarios of EvoEnergy development in relation to energy policy and decision-making.