Research Proposal

On

Medium Term Load Forecasting Using Artificial Neural

Networks
By

Sani Dahiru Buba

Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering

Federal Polytechnic P.M.B 35 Mubi
650001, Adamawa State, Nigeria.

Email: sanibintahir@yahoo.com
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Introduction
Electricity is considered as a vital energy in the lives of human beings as a result of its numerous
applications which includes comfort heating and cooling, electric cookers, microwave cookers,
elevators, escalators in the airports and other public places, electric train, lighting etc. Economic
and industrial development is on the increase by the day, so also the standard of living.
Therefore, there is constant increase in demand of electricity from industries, residential and
commercial sectors, business as well as personal use. For this reason, electric utility
companies must constantly focus on the development of electric energy to meet the ever
increasing demand. This can be achieved through proper planning of expansion and monitoring
of load growth.
Forecasting is a phenomenon of knowing what may happen to a system when certain
trends or conditions continue or continue to change. In electrical power systems, there is a great
need for accurately forecasting the load and energy requirements because electricity generation
as well as distribution poses a great financial liability to utility companies. Accurate load forecast
provides system dispatchers with timely information to operate the system economically and
reliably. It is also necessary because availability of electricity is one of the most important
factors for industrial development, especially for developing countries [1].
Load forecasting is considered to be an important task in modern power system planning,
operation and control. Accurate load forecasting can improve the security of the power system
and promote the economic efficiency of electric utilities [2]. Furthermore, load forecasting is an
important component for energy management system. Precise load forecasting helps the electric
utility to make unit commitment decisions including decisions on purchasing and generating
electric power, load switching, and infrastructure development. Besides playing a key role in
reducing the generation cost, it is also essential to the reliability of power systems. Load
forecasting also helps to estimate load flows and to make decisions that can prevent overloading.
Timely implementations of such decisions lead to the improvement of network reliability and to
the reduced occurrences of equipment failures and blackouts. Load forecasting is also important
for contract evaluations and evaluations of various sophisticated financial products on energy
pricing offered by the market. In a deregulated economy, decisions on capital expenditures based
on long-term forecasting are more important than in a non-deregulated economy where a rate
increase could be justified by capital expenditure projects [1].
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Generally, load forecasting is categorized into three classes, short term, medium term and
long term. Smith [3] opined that, short-term load forecasts lasting for (five minutes to one week
ahead) are required to ensure system stability, medium term forecasts with a duration of (one
week to six months ahead) are required for maintenance scheduling, while long term forecasts
(six months to 10 years ahead) are required for capital planning. Hayati and Shirvany also
suggested that short-term load forecasting (STLF) refers to forecasts of electricity demand (or
load), on an hourly basis, from one to several days ahead. The short-term load forecasting (one to
twenty four hours) is of importance in the daily operations of a power utility. It is required for
unit commitment, energy transfer scheduling and load dispatch. With the emergence of load
management strategies, the short term load forecasting has played a greater role in utility
operations. Load forecasting is however a difficult task. First, because the load series is complex
and exhibits several levels of variability according to seasons. For instance, the load at a given
hour is dependent not only on the load at the previous hour, but also on the load at the same hour
on the previous day, and on the load at the same hour on the day with the same denomination in
the previous week. Secondly, there are many important exogenous variables that must be
considered, especially weather-related variables. It is relatively easy to get forecast with about 10
% mean absolute error; however, the cost of error are so high that any research that could help to
reduce it to a few percent points would be amply justified [4].
Furthermore, actual load of the power system at any point in time depends on a number
of factors, all of which cannot be accurately predicted. The load demand changes cyclically in
response to the seasonal variations. In general, the overall load demands of the system
continually increases due to industrial growth, increase in electricity consumption, and other
related factors. The load follows a definite pattern for each day of the week, but changes
considerably over the weekends and public holidays [5]. From the foregoing discussions
therefore, the significance of load forecasting in electrical power system cannot be over
emphasized and thus there is strong justification for conducting load forecast in power systems.
Literature Review
Many load forecasting models and methods have already been tried out with varying degrees of
success. They may be classified as time series models, in which the load is modeled as a function
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of its past observed values, and causal models in which the load is modeled as a function of some
exogenous factors, especially weather and social variables. Some frequently used models found
in literature are multiplicative autoregressive models, dynamic linear or nonlinear models,
threshold autoregressive models, and methods based on Kalman filtering. Despite this large
number of alternatives, however, the most popular causal models are still the linear regression
ones and the models that decompose the load, usually into basic and weather dependent
components. Many algorithms have also been proposed in the last few decades for performing
accurate load forecasting. The most commonly used techniques include statistically based
techniques like time series, regression techniques and box Jenkis models and computational
intelligence method like fuzzy systems, artificial neural networks (ANNs) and neuro-fuzzy
systems [4].
Dragomir et al. [6] proposed the use of Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy inference system (ANFIS)
to study medium term load forecasting using data obtained from experiment on photo-voltaic
amphitheatre having parameters 0.4kV/10kW which is located in the east-central region of
Romania in the city of Targoviste. Artificial neural networks (ANN) is the most favourite
artificial intelligence (AI) tool in load forecasting especially for short term forecasting horizon
where it exhibits a good flexibility in capturing nonlinear interdependencies between the load
and exogenous variables. However, ANN models are complex and difficult to understand and are
often over fitted. This limits its application for all categories of load forecasting. ANFIS used in
non-periodic short term forecasting prediction introduces large errors due to high residual
variance, consequently, degrading prediction accuracy.
Hasan et al. [7] proposed a hybrid approach of ANN and particle swarm optimization
(PSO) model to study short term load forecasting (STLF) which is typical for western area of
Saudi Arabia using one year historical dependent data. A significant improvement was found
after applying PSO and ANN, it was also found that the error was within acceptable range for the
proposed method and the performance was much better than ANN alone.
Smith [3] studied electricity load and price forecasting using statistical methods and
models. The statistical method and model is an equivalent of ANN solution which is based on
the estimate of an additive semi parametric regression model resulting in the estimation of
smooth nonlinear periodic daily and weekly effects. If properly implemented, the forecasts are as
accurate as those from comparable ANN methods. Also, there are two major additional
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advantages of using statistical models, first, full predictive distribution of load are available, and
secondly, time series models for the residuals can be estimated which is a distinct advantage
because empirical evidence suggests that there is more structure to the data than nonlinear
periodic effects. Smith further reported a popular approach to load forecasting using multiequation models proposed by econometrics working on energy problems. Although they do not
estimate a smooth daily or weekly periodic function as in the case of semi parametric regression
model, it write down each intra-day period (such as half hour) as separate parametric regression
but with cross correlated errors. Multi-equation models have been widely used and are straight
forward to estimate either using maximum likelihood or Bayesian methods although there
appears to be no published comparisons, but the quality of the forecasts appear to be high. It is a
simple method to implement and has several advantages. First, it is known that meteorological
variables actually affect load in a different way in each of the intra-day periods which cannot be
captured by an additive meteorological effect used in the additive semi-parametric regression
models. Second, because the model is a series of parametric regressions, quite complex nonlinear
relationships between meteorological and load variables can be incorporated. Third, time series
models for the errors such as such as vector auto-regressions can be used. In this work, ANNs
would be used because of its high performance for prediction and also less requirement in terms
of memory space compared to other AI algorithms.
Objectives
The main objective of this study is to provide a medium term load forecast using ANN for a
chosen case study network. This is achieved by;
1. Obtaining previous load data from a chosen case study domain.
2. Develop an appropriate ANN structure and implement using the collected data.
Methodology
A case study electrical distribution network would be selected and the load profile studied either
by collecting the data over a period of time, say 6 months or load data from an electric utilitys
load profile over the same period of time would be used. The ANN structure would be developed
using the MATLAB ANN toolbox suitable to the collected data for training and testing purposes
after which a forecast routine would be implemented.
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Bibliography
[1] Sarangi, P. K., Singh, N., Swain, D., Chauhan, R. K., and Singh, R., Short Term Load
Forecasting Using Neuro-Genetic Hybrid Approach: Results Analysis with Different
Network Architectures, Journal of Theoretical and Applied Information Technology, 2009.
[2] Ko, C. N., Lee, C. M., Short Term Load Forecasting using Support Vector Regression based
Radial Basis Function Neural Network with Dual Extended Kalman Filter, Journal of Energy
Xxx (2013) 1-10.
[3] Smith, M., Electricity Load and Price Forecasting Using Statistical Methods and Models,
http://www.secondmoment.org/articles/electricity.php
[4] Hayati, M., and Shirvany, Y., Artificial Neural Network Approach for Short Term Load
Forecasting for Illam Region, International Journal of Electrical, Computer and System
Engineering, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2007.
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Vancouver DC, Canada, 1995.
[6] Dragomir, O. E., Dragomir, F., Gouriveau, F., and Minca, E., Medium Term Load
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Control and Automation Congress, Marrakech, Morocco, 23rd to 25th June, 2010.
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Forecasting, International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, Vol. 10, No.8,
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