Neural Approaches to Short-Time Load Forecasting in Power Systems—A Comparative Study

Background: The purpose of the paper is to propose different arrangements of neural networks for short-time 24-h load forecasting in Power Systems. Methods: The study discusses and compares different techniques of data processing, applying the feedforward and recurrent neural structures. They include such networks as multilayer perceptron, radial basis function, support vector machine, self-organizing Kohonen networks, deep autoencoder, and recurrent deep LSTM structures. The important point in getting high-quality results is the composition of many solutions in the common ensemble and their fusion to create the final forecast of time series. The paper considers and compares different methods of fusing the individual results into the final forecast, including the averaging, application of independent component analysis, dynamic integration, and wavelet transformation. Results: The numerical experiments have shown a high advantage of using many individual predictors integrated into the ensemble which are responsible for the final forecast. Especially efficient is the application of non-standard wavelet application in the formation of an ensemble, as well as the use of LSTM as the basic prediction unit. The novelty of the paper is the critical comparative analysis of the time series prediction methods applied for load forecasting in the power system. The presented approach may be useful for the users involved in power system operation management