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EE4525
Economic Operation of Power System

LOAD FORECASTING

Dr. Yassir Alhazmi

Electrical Engineering Department
Umm Al-Qura University
 Announcements
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 Virtual Office hours are upon your request; send an email at

yahazmi@uqu.edu.sa

 Term Project topics will be posted this week

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 Load Forecast

Objectives
1. Defining the different classes of load forecasting for distribution systems
• Short load forecast
• Medium load forecast
• Long load forecast.
2. Data preparation for short and medium load forecast
3. Presenting the classification for short and medium load forecast.
4. Identifying the load forecasting methods suitable for distribution systems.
5. Presenting the mathematical formulation for different load forecasting methods.
6. Presenting the state of the arts load forecasting methods.
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 Introduction

• Load forecasting at the distribution level is a major component for the planning and
proper operation of the distribution network.

• Frequently there is a time lag between awareness of an impending increase in load

demand and the occurrence of that increase.

• This time allows electrical engineers to perform the task of planning and forecasting
needed to meet the expected demand increase.

• Load forecast is needed to determine when an increase on load will occur so that
appropriate actions can be taken

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 Introduction

The factors that affect load forecast are:

1. Historical load data

2. Load density
3. Land use
4. City planning
5. Industrial plans
6. Community development plan
7. Alternative energy source available
8. Population growth

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 Introduction

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 Load Forecast

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 Short Term Load Forecast (STLF)

• It spans the period from one hour up to one week

• It is mainly utilized for:
o Power system operation studies
o Losses reduction
o Voltage regulations
o Unit commitment
o Maximizing the utility revenues in the deregulated environment.

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 Medium Term Load Forecast (MTLF)

• It spans the period from one week to several weeks

• It is mainly utilized for:
o Predicting the necessary power to purchase or sell from
other neighboring networks (inter-tie exchanged power)
o The fuel required by the utility in the near future.

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 Long Term Load Forecast (LTLF)
• It spans over a period ranging from one year up to twenty years
• It is necessary for planning and expansion studies.
• It is mandatory to know how much power we will need in the future
and where this power is needed.
• Accurately estimating the required amount of capacity in future with
poor estimation about the location where these capacities are
required will lead to installing more capacities in areas which do not
required expansion
• May lead to shortage of power in some regions and unutilized
capacities in some other regions.
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 Requirements for Different Forecast Models
• In short and medium electric load forecast, it is required to know how
much power we will need and at what time of the day is provided
• The information regarding where this demand is required is not of a
major concern.
• Accurate STLFM required data which is associated mainly with
o the time dimension
o historical load data
o historical weather conditions
o the predicted weather condition
o the nature of the day and the season
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 Requirements for Different Forecast Models

A variety of methods have been deployed for short and medium

electric load forecast such as

• naïve approaches,
• simple regression analysis,
• time series analysis,
• methods which are based on soft-computing.

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 Requirements for Different Forecast Models

Beside time and weather conditions a variety of factors will affect the
long term forecasting; these factors include but are not limited to:
• economic growth,
• city plans,
• social factors,
• political factors.

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 Requirements for Different Forecast Models

• Several approaches have been utilized for long term electric

load forecasts

• These approaches should consider the spatial information

in their formulations.

• Trending and simulation methods are the most powerful and

acceptable approaches which deal with the spatial load
forecast.

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 Data Collection and Preprocessing

The following data are important for proper load forecast studies:

• Load in MW and MVAR

• Weather conditions (temperature, dew point, pressure, sky cover,
visibility, weather forecasts, etc)
• Economic indicators (local industrial production, housing starts,
etc.)
• Customer counts and types as a function of system, substation, or
buss.
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 Data Collection and Preprocessing

The following data are important for proper load forecast studies:

• Load in MW and MVAR

• Weather conditions (temperature, dew point, pressure, sky cover,
visibility, weather forecasts, etc)
• Economic indicators (local industrial production, housing starts,
etc.)
• Customer counts and types as a function of system, substation, or
buss.
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 Data Collection and Preprocessing

In electric load forecast studies three factors should be handled

carefully:

1- Time factor
2- Weather conditions
3- The historical load demand.

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 Data Collection and Preprocessing

The time factors take into account:

the time of the year,
the day of the week,
the hour of the day.

An index can be utilized in load forecasting studies which distinguish

between weekdays and weekends.
The load on different weekdays also can behave differently.
For example, Mondays and Fridays being adjacent to weekends, may
have structurally different loads than Tuesday through Thursday.
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 Data Collection and Preprocessing

The weather conditions that influencing the load

Various weather variables are considered by different utilities
and research engineers to capture the effect of weather
condition on electric load forecast
• Temperature,
• wind,
• humidity.

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 Data Collection and Preprocessing

The weather conditions that influencing the load

Utilities widely utilize two factors to capture these effects:

the first factor is related to temperature and humidity index and
is usually utilized in summer to capture the effect of heat and
humidity on the electric consumption.
Other indices which are related to wind speed, temperature
and rate of ice falling are utilized in winter.

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 Data Collection and Preprocessing

The historical load demand data

The raw data collected from different sources should be pre-processed

in order to achieve proper load forecast quality; the following chronicle
steps are generally required:

• Remove all negative and zero values.

• Remove outlying data that have values that are much greater
than, or less than, the average values.
• Remove patterns that have time gradients that are too large.
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 Data Collection and Preprocessing

The historical load demand data

• Each individual data set should be inspected manually.

• However, when there are large data sets to analyze,
manually cleaning-up each data file individually will require
substantial time and effort
• Automated examination may be the best alternative, using
some well established statistically-based methods.

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