ELEN 764 Power System Planning: Experimental
Exploration Two
Charles Winley Jr.
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
Greensboro, North Carolina, USA
cwinley@ncat.edu
Abstract
This paper discusses the development of a Power
System Load (PSL) model of weekly PSL data from
a Southeastern Electric Power Corporation. 1 This
experimental exploration centers around developing
a PSL model using the Randolph Electric Member-
ship Corporate weekly averaged load to develop a
model utilizing the concept of base load, growth
rate, seasonal weather effects, and random non-
seasonal weather effects components. Load models
are tools that have a wide range of applications in
the electric power industry, such as monitoring load
management policies, helping with the generator
commitment problem by providing short term fore-
casts, and aiding in power system planning.[1]. An
innovative method based upon analyzing four years
of weekly data is proposed to generate an optimum
model structure from a set of preselected heuristic
basis functions. The result is a PSL model capable
of providing high quality short term forecasts.
KEY WORDS
Power System Load, OLAM Regression, Base
Load, Significance.
1 Introduction
Power systems are very dynamic in nature and it is
very important for power systems to be simulated
and modeled accurately for optimal performance of
the system[2]. Accurate models allow power com-
panies to ensure that at minimum the Base Load
is always being provided and will help to avoid
Brownouts and Blackouts. The need for this be-
came evident through 2003 Northeastern Intercon-
nect Blackout. Power system load models enable
1 The Power System Load data for this research has been pro-
vided by Randolph Electric Membership Corporate, an Electric
Power Cooperate operating in the area surrounding Asheboro
North Carolina.
1
the Power companies to load forecast so they can de-
velop maintenance schedules and plan for upgrades
that may be need to be performed on various stations
and substations on the power grid. In order develop
the most accurate forecast, the data must be accu-
rately modeled. Accurately modeling the data not
only requires the correct assumptions to be made but
the correct adaptations to the model to achieve the
most accurate system output. These adaptations may
be as simple as adjusting the weights or removing
the insignificant data and it’s corresponding weights
altogether.
2 Overview
In the Southeastern region of the US there are four
seasons experienced winter, spring, summer, and
fall. Because of the heating peaks in the winter,
cooling peaks during the summer, and spring/fall
lows in power consumption the PSL data when
graphed resembles a noisy sinusoidal wave. In this
experiment the Truncated Fourier series will be uti-
lized to calculate estimated values of the seasonal
effects on the PSL model. These estimates represent
ideal values that would have been obtained if there
had been no contamination to the PSL due to noise.
These calculations are important because this analy-
sis will provide data about the long term power sys-
tem load and thus, allow load forecasting to be more
accurate and precise. Because of an infinite number
of possible fourier coefficients it will be necessary
to bound the number of coefficients that will be used
to help model the PSL accurately. Accurate power
system load models reliably reflect underlying phe-
nomena of the physical loads which in terms support
economic dispatch parameter estimation, and make
automatic control system design and optimization.
3 Linear Least Squares 4 Weight Estimates
Linear least squares, first described by Carl
Friedrich Gauss around 1794 is a method used for
fitting a linear model to data. Least squares is of-
ten applied in statistical contexts, particularly re-
gression analysis. Linear least squares regression For exercise 2 the normal equations for Base,
is by far the most widely used modeling method, Growth, and the fourier coefficients for N =
due to its simplicity, the goals of linear least squares 1, 2, 3, and4 will be utilized to help develop a data
are to extract predictions from the measurements set . Using the calculated data set (X) and the orig-
and to reduce the effect of measurement errors. A inal PSL (y) you can now calculate the weight es-
fundamental assumption of the least squares is the timates using the OLAM Pseudo inverse. (equation
best-fit curve through the experimental data is one 8)
that exhibits the least square error from the given
set of data. In terms involving a single variable,
(x1 , y1 ), ...(xn , yn ) where the x’s are the indepen-
dent variables and y is the dependent variable we at-
tempt to use a fitting cure f(x). We will be using the
linear least squares equation (equation 1) to derive
model consisting of base and growth.

M
X b = (X T X)−1 X T ∗ y
w (8)
2
SSD(Base, Growth) = (P SLw −Base−Growth∗w)
w=1
(1)

3.1 Base and Growth Model Derivation

For exercise 1 we were given the task of forming
normal equations for the least square problem (equa-
tion 1) for the Base and Growth constants. To derive
Using wb and (X) the PSL model can be calcu-
the Base and Growth partial derivatives of SSD will
lated (equation 9)
be taken with respect to Base and Growth: (equa-
tions 2 − 7)

M
∂SSD X
= −2 wi ∗ (P SLi − B − G ∗ wi )2 = 0
∂G i=1 SL = X ∗ w
Pd b (9)
(2)
M
∂SSD X
= −2 (P SLi − B − G ∗ wi )2 = 0 (3)
∂B i=1

X X X
G wi2 + B wi = wi ∗ P SLi (4)
X X In this exercise it was observed that as you in-
G wi + n ∗ B = P SLi (5)
creased the number of harmonics (N) from 1 har-
monic to 4 harmonics the Pd SL began to look more
P P P like the original PSL model. By calculating the per-
wi ∗ P SLi − wi P SLi
n
Growth = = 15.25 cent error each time the number of harmonics (N)
n wi2 − ( wi )2
P P
was increased I was able observe that the best re-
(6)
1 X X sults were present when either two or three harmon-
Base = ( P SLi − Growth wi ) = 7540 ics were used when calculating Pd SL. This variance
n
(7) I feel was due to the randomization of the data set.
Figure 1. PSLtrn and PSLtrn hat w/ N=1

Figure 2. PSLtrn and PSLtrn hat w/ N=2 Figure 4. PSLtrn and PSLtrn hat w/ N=4

Figure 3. PSLtrn and PSLtrn hat w/ N=3

5 Confidence
Exercise 3 called for the use of Base, Growth, and
the fourier coefficients consisting of all four har-
monics to evaluate the significance of the regres-
sion model parameters. Doing this allowed me to
verify my observations on what weight estimates
where significant and would provide the most opti-
mal model. The weight estimates where evaluated to
see if they where significantly different from zero at
the significance level of 2ε . The weights would only
be significant if the confidence integral constructed
about the estimators do not contain zero. Figure 6. PSLtst hat after removing insignificant
Fourier Coefficients is being compared to the Origi-
(ŵ − t 2ε sˆj , ŵ + t 2ε sˆj ) (10) nal PSLtst

where t 2ε is located on the t distribution table at

t(n − k). Because there are more than 30 degrees of
freedom you will look at the values for ∞ which are
normal distributed values and the t-table becomes a
z-table.
r
1
sˆj = ( ∗ SSDM OD )(X T X)−1 jj (11)
n−k

n = the number of events

k = the number of constants

Figure 7. PSL hat after removing insignificant

Fourier Coefficients is being compared to the Origi-
nal PSL after data is unrandomized

After calculating Pd SL finding the Confidence inte-

grals to the determine the significance of the regres-
sion coefficients allowed me to bound N for the trun-
cated fourier series. After comparing the Original
Figure 5. PSLtrn hat after removing insignificant
PSL to Pd SL it became evident that the change in
Fourier Coefficients is being compared to the Origi-
growth at the end of the data set was being poorly
nal PSLtrn
represented. To fix this problem I randomized the
data set so that the data being used for training would
avoid bias and correlation. By doing this the calcu-
lated PSL model was better able to mimic the behav-
ior of the original PSL model which was desired.
6 Conclusion
For experimental exploration two the normal equa-
tion for the least squares problem SSD was used to
yield two equations and two unknowns,the Base and
Growth constants. Base and Growth along with the
fourier coefficient where then used to calculate the
weight estimates for Pd SL using a Pseudo inverse.
References
[1] G. L. Lebby, “Power system load modeling us-
ing a statistically trained gmdh network,” Sixth
IASTED International Conference on Expert
Systems and Neural Networks, 1990.
[2] G. Lebby, A. Darmand, and K. Jones, “A par-
allel distributed method for power system load
flow,” in PowerCon 2003: Blackout. IEEE,
2003.