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SHORT TERM LOAD FORECASTING USING FUZZY LOGIC

Conference Paper · May 2017

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 International Conference on Research in Education and Science (ICRES), May 18 - 21, 2017 Ephesus-Kusadasi/Turkey

SHORT TERM LOAD FORECASTING

USING FUZZY LOGIC
Piyali Ganguly
Victoria University

Akhtar Kalam
Victoria University

Aladin Zayegh
Victoria University

Abstract: For an economic generation of power, load forecasting is necessary. It is also important for
economic allocation between plants (Unit commitment scheduling), maintenance scheduling and for system
security such as peak load sharing by power interchange with interconnected units. In the present work, the
results of a fuzzy logic model for short-term (hourly) load forecasting are presented. The present methodology
uses the historical load data and the time of the day to design the Fuzzy rule base to predict the load curve of the
day. The results obtained prove that the Fuzzy rule base can efficiently predict the short term load demand with
minimum error.

Keywords: Short term load forecasting, fuzzy logic

INTRODUCTION

Load forecasting is a very important part of the power system as it is the part of energy management system for
operation and planning purposes. Load forecasting is the method of predicting the electrical load demand. Load
forecasting is an integral and central process in the planning and operation of electrical energy management
system [7]. Load forecasting can be divided into two categories:

 Shor-term, and
 Long term.

Long term forecasting is required for preparing maintenance schedules of the generating units, planning future
capacity requirements of the system, entering into agreements with neighbouring utilities which may have either
surplus or deficit of energy, for energy interchange etc. For day–to–day operation, covering one day or a week,
short-term load forecasting is needed in order to commit (i.e. to select) enough generating capacity for meeting
the forecasted demand and for maintaining the required spinning reserve. Spinning reserve means the generating
capacity in excess of actual loading of the committed units. Traditional models for load forecasting can be
generally classified as time series models or regression models [2]. The previous load has been used to predict
the future load demand in time series model. But this estimation method is very complex and a large amount of
data is required to build the comprehensive forecasting system. The regression model is the second major
modelling technique used to forecast short-term load [3]. In this methodology, the database is divided into
smaller segments. For each section, a regression model may be built, such as a particular season or a day of the
week. The estimated parameter values are readily interpretable but the disadvantage of this method is that they
require a substantial database possibly including obsolete historical data.

Fuzzy logic methods are the alternative to the conventional methods of load forecasting. This is an appropriate
method especially when it is tough to get a mathematical relationship between historical data. Fuzzy logic
models may be integrated into expert systems or artificial neural network models where both user expertise and
numerical data can be utilised. One of the major obstacles in implementing and using a short term load
forecasting model has been the lack of user trust and confidence in the model [1]. The design method to capture
the nonlinear relationships between inputs (previous day‘s load, peak load, day, time) and outputs (predicted
load) is very complex in terms of its mathematical representation, and it does not offer the user an intuitive
understanding. Using fuzzy logic, this mathematical relationship can be reduced to a logic table, such as a set of
IF-THEN statements (e.g. IF Day is Weekend and Time is 1 THEN Load is Mf1) and that gives the user more
confidence to use the model. A set of logic statements, or rules. These statements could be developed from
expert knowledge or, from a set of historical observations with expert assistance. In this research, historical load
information, day, time are converted into 'fuzzy' information. A fuzzy rule base is developed to produce 'fuzzy'

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 International Conference on Research in Education and Science (ICRES), May 18 - 21, 2017 Ephesus-Kusadasi/Turkey

forecasts and defuzzification is performed to generate a point estimate for system load. This methodology has
yielded accurate results comparable to other more complex statistical models, [2], [4].

In this paper, a method of hourly load forecasting using fuzzy logic has been presented. The load forecasting has
been done using the one-year data from the large-scale power system. The proposed methodology uses fuzzy
rules to incorporate historical load data with time and day. Here day means Weekend or weekdays. The aim of
the work is to determine the probable load curve of a particular day observing one-year data from large-scale
industry.

.
Fuzzy Logic Methodology For Short Term Load Forecasting

Fuzzification

Fuzzification is the process by which the crisp numerical values are converted into the degree of membership
related to the corresponding fuzzy sets. A membership function (MF) accepts a crisp value as its argument and
returns the degree to which that value belongs to the fuzzy set the MF represents. This work makes an
arrangement of fuzzy subsets for different inputs and outputs in a complete universe of disclosure as a
membership function in order to express the fuzziness of data.

The advantage of using fuzzy logic model is that the values for the inputs and outputs may be expressed in
natural language. For example, a ‗Load‘ variable can take ‗Fazzy‘ values, such as ‗VVL‘ stands for ‗very very
low‘, ―VL‘ for ‗very low‘ etc. A fuzzy logic model maps the input values to output values using simple IF-
THEN logic statement.

Fuzzy Rule-Base

Fuzzy Rule Base is the heart of a fuzzy model. In this part of the system the heuristic knowledge is stored in
terms of ‗IF-THEN‘ Rules. The rule base is used to send information to fuzzy inference system(FIS) to process
through inference mechanism to numerically evaluate the information embedded in fuzzy rule base to get the
output. Fuzzy inference is the process of formulating the mapping from a given input to an output using fuzzy
logic. The mapping then provides a basis from which decisions can be made, or patterns discerned. An example
of rule may be ‗For example, ‗IF day is ‗Holiday‘ and ‗Time‘ is ‗1am‘ THEN the ‗Load‘ is ‗Mf4‘. Fig. 2.1
represents the configuration of fuzzy logic.

Fig 2.1. Configuration of fuzzy logic

Proposed Methodology

From the observation of the data set, it can be seen that a load of a particular time (for example 10am-11am) of a
day depend upon certain factors. They are, the time load is to be forecasted, forecasted maximum load of the
day, the day (whether it is Weekend or weekday), and historical load. It is observed from the data set, that in the
case of weekend or holidays, the load is dependent on the previous day‘s load more than the forecasted
maximum load of the day. But in the case of weekdays, the load is dependent on the forecasted maximum load
of the day more than the previous day‘s load. To incorporate all the factors affecting the hourly load forecasting,
fuzzy logic has been used.

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 International Conference on Research in Education and Science (ICRES), May 18 - 21, 2017 Ephesus-Kusadasi/Turkey

This has been done by designing two fuzzy logic models and multiplying the outputs of the two fuzzy models.
The schematic diagram of the fuzzy logic load forecasting model can be presented by fig 3.1.

As mentioned, two fuzzy logic models have been designed to forecast the load demand. In 1st model, ‗time‘ and
the ‗day‘ have been used as inputs. Day means whether it is weekday or weekend (or holiday) as it is known that
load demand of a weekday and weekend (or holidays) follow different patterns. The membership functions of
‗time‘ and ‗day‘ are shown below. It shows that the variable ‗day‘ has 2 membership functions. One ‗holid‘
(which represents the holidays and weekends), and the second one is ‗weekday‘. The variable ‗time‘ has 12
membership functions. (1,2,3 …….12). The output ‗load‘ has 13 membership functions (mf1, mf2…..mf13).Figs
3.2-3.8 show the membership functions of the fuzzy logic model. 24 rules have been formed observing the test
data. It is based on the demonstrated success in generating forecasts, the methodology proposed by Wang, L. X.
[6], and Kosko [5] is used. From this fuzzy model, we can get the forecasted load which depends on the day and
the time only. But these two inputs are not sufficient as that would result in the same load profile for all
weekdays throughout the year, and also the same for all weekends and holidays which is not practical. Load
demand is also dependent on some other criterion.

From the observation of the test data, it can be seen that the hourly load is dependent on previous day‘s load of
that particular time at which the load is to be forecasted, and the forecasted maximum load of the day. The peak
load or maximum load of the can be forecasted from the maximum minimum temperature, previous day‘s peak
load [ 3]. So, to incorporate another two variables, another fuzzy logic model has been developed and the output
of that model is a factor, which depends on the previous day‘s load and the forecasted maximum load of the day.
The inputs to this fuzzy model are ‗prevdload‘ (which represents the previous day load demand on that time),
‗maxload‘ (maximum forecasted load of the day) and ‗day‘ (whether it is weekend/Holiday or weekday) and the
output is ‗factor‘. The membership functions of the two fuzzy logic model are shown below). As stated earlier, it
has been observed that the weekends load is much dependent on previous days‘ load other than that of a
weekday and weekday‘s load curve depends much on the forecasted peak load of the day. So ‗day‘ is another
factor that has been taken as input in this model. 89 rules have been formed from the observation of the load
profile to get more accurate performance.

In order to forecast the hourly load demand of a day, 1st it is required to select a test set of data. Then using this
data, one can get the output from the two fuzzy logic models for 24 hours as represented in Fig 3.1. From the 1st
fuzzy controller, the value of load can be obtained and from the second fuzzy model, one can derive the factor
that needs to be multiplied with the output of the first fuzzy model. After multiplying the two outputs of the two
fuzzy logic models, one can generate the value of forecasted load demand for 24 hours, means the load curve of
the day. After observing the performance of the system with the test data, further modifications of the fuzzy
logic model can be done to achieve better performance. One can do that by modifying the shape of the
membership functions, by modifying the rules or by doing both.

Fig. 3.1 Schematic diagram of the fuzzy logic model

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International Conference on Research in Education and Science (ICRES), May 18 - 21, 2017 Ephesus-Kusadasi/Turkey

Fig 3.2 Membership function of output of fuzzy logic model 1- ‗load‘ (forecasted)

Fig 3.3 Membership function of input of fuzzy logic model 1- ‗day‘

Fig 3.4 Membership function of input of fuzzy logic model1 - ‗time‘

Fig 3.5 Membership function of output of fuzzy logic model2 - ‗factor‘

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 International Conference on Research in Education and Science (ICRES), May 18 - 21, 2017 Ephesus-Kusadasi/Turkey

Fig 3.6 Membership function of input of fuzzy logic model2 ‗prevdload‘

Fig 3.7 Membership function of input of fuzzy logic model 2- ‗maxload‘

Fig 3.8 Membership function of input of fuzzy logic model2- ‗day‘

Simulation and Results

The simulation is done in MATLAB /SIMULINK environment. Fuzzy logic toolbox has been used to create the
fuzzy logic models stated above.

Figures 4.1- 4.3 represents the actual load versus forecasted load curves for different days are shown. From these
figures, it can be said that the fuzzy logic model is working satisfactorily to forecast the short term load demand.
The mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) was used to study the performance of the fuzzy model. It is defined
as follows

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 International Conference on Research in Education and Science (ICRES), May 18 - 21, 2017 Ephesus-Kusadasi/Turkey

Fig 4.1 Load curve of Sunday/Weekend – series1 represents actual load, series2 represents forecasted load

Fig 4.2 Load curve of Monday –series1 represents actual load, series2 represents forecasted load

Fig 4.3 Load curve of Tuesday – series 1 represents actual

load, series 2 represents forecasted load

Where N is the number of observations in the test data set. Here the table 1 shows the MAPE and maximum
percentage error for seven days. For each day,

Table 4.1. MAPE for seven days

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 International Conference on Research in Education and Science (ICRES), May 18 - 21, 2017 Ephesus-Kusadasi/Turkey

load has been forecasted for 24 hours. The results show that the fuzzy logic model is working satisfactorily with
permissible error.

Conclusions
A methodology to design a fuzzy logic model for short term load forecasting is presented in this paper. The
fuzzy logic model is able to forecast the short term load demand efficiently for different days and time.
However, this model has a limitation. The suggested model is not able to consider any sudden load change. If the
load requirement changes abruptly for few hours only due to any unpredictable reason, this model will not be
able to follow the change, this means that it will not be able to forecast the load for that particular time with a
permissible range of error. Besides this, the model works satisfactorily.

References
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Ranaweera D K, Hubeleand N F, Karady G G, ―F uzzy logic for short term load forecasting‖ ElectricalPower &
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Shnaider, E and Kandel, A,‖The use of fuzzy set theory for forecasting corporate tax revenue‖,F uzzy Set Syst.
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B. Kosko, Neural networks and fuzzy systems, 1st ed. Englewood Cliffs,N.J.: Prentice-Hall International, 1992.
Wang, L. & Mendel, J. (1992). Generating fuzzy rules by learning from examples. IEEE Transactions On
Systems, Man, And Cybernetics, 22(6), 1414-1427.
Moghram, I. & Rahman, S. (1989). Analysis and Evaluation of Five Short-Term Load Forecasting Techniques.
IEEE Power Engineering Review, 9(11), 42-43.

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