New AI system predicts building energy rates in less than a second

Computer scientists at Loughborough University have teamed up with multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy, Cundall, to create an artificial intelligence system that can predict building emissions rates (BER) – an important value used to calculate building energy performance – of non-domestic buildings. Current methods can take hours to days to produce BERs and are generated by manually inputting hundreds of variables. Dr Georgina Cosma and postgraduate student Kareem Ahmed, of the School of Science, have designed and trained an AI model to predict BER values with 27 inputs with little loss in accuracy. Better yet, the proposed AI model – which was created with the support of Cundall's Head of Research and Innovation, Edwin Wealend, and trained using large-scale data obtained from UK government energy performance assessments – can generate a BER value almost instantly. Dr Cosma says the research "is an important first step towards the use of machine learning tools for energy prediction in the UK" and it shows how data can "improve current processes in the construction industry".