POWER SYSTEM PLANNING

LOAD FORECASTING
When planning exploitation of the natural energy sources of a country, progress
takes time and a lot of capital investment is required. So advance decisions are
required to be taken for judicious and profitable investment in various projects
to make them effective, economical and useful. For this purpose, the anticipated
electrical energy demand should be known. The resources available in the
country for electrical power generation e.g., for steam power stations,
hydropower stations, and nuclear power stations, can then be developed
considering the electrical power and energy needs, and the locations or regions
where the demand is expected.

Load forecasting is a central and integral process in the planning and operation
of electric utilities. It involves the accurate prediction of both the magnitudes
and geo- graphical locations of electric load over the different periods (usually
hours) of the planning horizon. The basic quantity of interest in load forecasting
is typically the hourly total system load. Moreover, load forecasting is also
concerned with the prediction of hourly, daily, weekly and monthly values of the
system load, peak system load and the system energy.

NECESSITY OF LOAD FORECASTING

Load forecasting is vitally important for the electric industry in the deregulated
economy. It has many applications including energy purchasing and generation,
load switching, contract evaluation, and infrastructure development. A large
variety of mathematical methods have been developed for load forecasting.
Accurate models for electric power load forecasting are essential to the
operation and planning of a utility company. Load forecasting helps an electric
utility to make important decisions including decisions on purchasing and
generating electric power, load switching, and infrastructure development. Load
forecasts are extremely important for energy suppliers, ISOs,. national
institutions, and other participants in electric energy generation, transmission,
distribution, and markets.

1.2 Types of Load Forecasting Techniques Involved Load forecasts can be

divided into three categories:
[i] Short-term forecasts: This is usually from one hour to one week.
[ii]Medium forecasts: This is usually from a week to a year.
[iii]Long-term forecasts: This is longer than a year.
The forecasts for different time horizons are important for different operations
within a utility company. The natures of these forecasts are different as well. For
example, for a particular region, it is possible to predict the next day load with
an accuracy of approximately 1-3%. However, it is impossible to predict the next
year peak load with the similar accuracy since accurate long-term weather
forecasts are not available. For the next year peak forecast, it is possible to
provide the probability distribution of the load based on historical weather
observations. It is also possible, according to the industry practice, to predict the
so-called weather normalized load, which would take place for average annual
peak weather conditions or worse than average peak weather conditions for a
given area. Weather normalized load is the load calculated for the so-called
normal weather conditions which are the average of the weather characteristics
for the peak historical loads over a certain period of time. The duration of this
period varies from one utility to another. Most companies take the last 25-30
years of data. Load forecasting has always been important for planning and
operational decision. However, with the deregulation of the energy industries,
load forecasting is even more important. With supply and demand fluctuating
and the changes of weather conditions and energy prices increasing by a factor
of ten or more during peak situations, load forecasting is vitally important for
utilities. Short-term load forecasting can help 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 the deregulated
economy, decisions on capital expenditures based on long-term forecasting are
also more important than in a non-deregulated economy when rate increases
could be justified by capital expenditure projects.

Important Factors for Forecasts

Consideration of various factors is the prerequisite for accurate forecasting of
load. Time factor, past weather data, class of consumers, load demanded by the
region in past, growth of the region, amount of load increased etc, these are the
factors which play pivotal role in calculating the demand load. For Short-term
load forecasting several factors should be considered, such as
[i] Time factors,
[ii] Weather data, and
[iii] Possible customers’ classes.

The medium- and long-term forecasts take into account

[i] The historical load
[ii]Weather data,
[iii]The number of customers in different categories,
[iv]The appliances in the area and their characteristics including age,
[v] The economic and demographic data and their forecasts,
[vi]The appliance sales data and other factors.

Construction and installation of equipment in power plants takes 4 to 6 years.

Medium term forecast of 5 to 6 years are therefore, very significant for planning
the size of power plants. Forecasts of demand and energy are required to
estimate the additional installed capacity required to facilitate the plant
maintenance programme and to estimate the firm capacity of the restricted
hydro plants.
Short term forecasts of one or two years are mainly required for deciding
operating procedures, and for preparing budget estimates. Forecasting of load
requirements is an essential part of power project design. The forecast is based
upon
(i) past development of power projects in the region
(ii) (ii) applications received from different types of consumers and
(iii) (iii) trends towards the development of industries and other
potentialities for load development.
The methods, that are generally used for forecasts or estimates of future
demand of electrical energy are
I. Load survey methods.
II. 2• Methods of extrapolation.
III. 3• Mathematical methods.
IV. 4• Mathematical methods using economic parameters.

Load Survey Methods

In load survey methods, the area Interest is visited and the existing and future
load needs estimated, taking into considerations of the communities in the
region and the factors which are likely to increase the load demand of the in the
region in the near future. Loads are grouped under different categories such as
residential/domestic, commercial/industrial etc. detailed information, category
wise and area-wise is collected to estimate the demand (is growth rate),
duration and time occurrence of load and the energy requirements. The
existing data on loads in various categories and the expected increase in each
category of load for the coming 5 to 6 years is then used in the preparation of
each category of load demand and energy forecast.

Methods of Extrapolation:
These methods are essentially statistical. These methods involve the study of
data collected from different records. These methods are use data to compare
the trends towards increase in demand and in energy consumption during past
few years comparable with the period of the forecasts. These methods are used
in determination of the average rate of increase of energy Consumption in the
past, and also in the countries with similar economic structure. Then, these data
are used in forecasting and estimating the future needs. These methods,
however, have a drawback that these do not consider unforeseen
developments, such as the establishment of large and major industries which
may alter the future load requirements altogether. For example, in our country
since independence there has been considerable emphasis on power projects
under various five year plans, which could not have been predicted from pre-
independence conditions.

Mathematical Methods
These methods use linear or exponential curve fitting techniques for
extrapolation of the curves indicating energy consumption for past several
years. This methods can be applied only when adequate statistical data for over
a sufficiently long period on the past consumption of electrical energy is
available.

Mathematical Methods Using Economic Parameters

These methods are based on the assumption that per capital Consumption of
electrical energy in a country depends upon economic factors, such as specific
gross investments, industrial production, specific GNP, steel consumption,
housing transport, etc. indices of these parameters are found and suitably used
for extrapolation by linear or exponential approximations.
Exercises