A local Spanish company that produces electric heaters needs an energy saving device to be integrated with the heaters. It was proven that a hybrid artificial intelligent systems (HAIS) could afford the energy saving reasonably, even though some improvements must be introduced. One of the critical elements in the process of designing an energy saving system is the thermodynamical modelling of the house to be controlled. This work presents a study of different first order techniques, some taken from the literature and other new proposals, for the prediction of the thermal dynamics in a house. Finally it is concluded that a first order prediction system is not a valid prediction model for such an energy saving system.
Enrique A. de la Cal, José Ramón Vil