Analysis of Different Testing Parameters in Self- Organizing Maps for Short-Term Load Demand Forecasting in Spain

Abstract — Short-term forecasting is required by utility planners and electric system operators for tactical operational planning and day-to-day decision making. The forecasting is intended to obtain the system load demand over a period of hours or days, and it plays an important role in determining unit commitment, spinning reserve, economic power interchange, load management etc... Electrical load has a time-varying nature, and it is affected by various factors such as social, meteorological and financial conditions. Since the time horizon is relatively small in short-term load forecasting, the social and financial conditions have almost no influence on the forecasting process. In this research, the authors analyze the capability of a neural network, such as Self-Organizing Maps (SOM) for short-term load forecasting. The inpu