Data Preprocessing for Load Forecasting using Artificial Neural Network

An accurate demand forecasting is essential for planning the electric dispatch in power system, contributing financially to electricity companies and helping in the security and continuity of electricity supply. In addition, it is evident that the distributed energy resource integration in the electric power system has been increasing recently, mostly from the photovoltaic generation, resulting in a gradual change of the load curve profile. Therefore, the 24 hours ahead prediction of the electrical demand of Campina Grande, Brazil, was realized from artificial neural network with a focus on the data preprocessing. Thus, the time series variations, such as hourly, diary and seasonal, were reduced in order to obtain a better demand prediction. Finally, it was compared the results between the forecasting with the preprocessing application and the prediction without the preprocessing stage. Based on the results, the first methodology presented lower mean absolute percentage error with 7.95% against 10.33% of the second one.