Predicting short-term energy usage in a smart home using hybrid deep learning models

The forecasting of home energy consumption is a crucial and challenging topic within the realm of artificial intelligence (AI)-enhanced energy management in smart grids (SGs). The primary goal of this study is to provide accurate energy consumption forecasts for a smart home. Two deep learning models are implemented: ConvLSTM, which combines convolutional operations with Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), and the CNN-LSTM model, which synergizes Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and LSTM networks. Both hybrid models offer a comprehensive approach to modeling complex relationships in spatial and temporal patterns. Additionally, two baseline models—LSTM and CNN—are employed for comparative analysis. Utilizing real data from a smart home in Houston, Texas, the results demonstrate that both the hybrid models deliver highly accurate predictions for energy consumption. However, the ConvLSTM model outperforms all proposed models, improving predictions in terms of mean absolute percentage error by 4.52%, 9.59%, and 10.53% for 1 day, 3 days, and 6 days in advance, respectively.