ANN BASED MONTHLY POWER CONSUMPTION FORECASTING. CASE STUDY FOR A ROMANIAN ELECTRIC ENERGY DISTRIBUTION OPERATOR

ABSTRACT

The load forecasting problem is very important for every distribution system operator. The network evolution, associated behavior, related policies, etc. are correlated with this subject. Thepaper is focusing on monthly load curves forecasting. Artificial intelligence based methods such as artificial neural networks and also conventional methods are appliedin order to perform the forecast. A comparison is accomplished in order to provide thebest approach. To achieve this goal several indices have been computed and discussed.A large set of load consumption data provided by the distribution system operator involved are used within the current paper. All the numerical results that are going tobe presented have been obtained using own developed software-tools. The distribution network managedby the involved distribution network operator is characterized by high degree of renewablesources penetration degree. The load curves are defined based on the power consumptionvalues for a specific hour and day for each of the 12 months of the year. The results are related to the 9:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. hours of the last Thursday, also of the 1st Tuesday and the 2ndWednesday of each month. Data are knownfor the period 2009-2016. The first 6 years (2009-2014) have been used in order to perform the forecast. The last twoones have been used in order to validate to forecast.

Keywords: load curve, forecast, artificial neural networks, unconventional methods.