Traditionally, regression analysis has been the most popular
modeling technique in predicting energy consumption. However,
the importance of the ANN approach, apart from reducing the time
required, is that it is possible to make energy applications more
viable and thus more attractive to potential users, such as energy
engineers. Also, this approach has the advantages of computational
speed, low cost for feasibility, and ease of design by operators with
little technical experience. Therefore, the use of ANN for modeling
and prediction purposes is becoming increasingly popular in the
recent decades. This is mainly because ANN has very good approximation
capabilities and offers additional advantages, such as short
development and fast processing times. ANNs are especially useful
in predicting problems where mathematical formulae and prior
knowledge on the relationship between inputs and outputs are unknown
[5,7–9].