STLF using Neural Networks and Fuzzy for anomalous load scenarios - A case study for Hajj

Load Forecasting has an important role in load generation, scheduling, planning etc. in power system. Different computational intelligent techniques are used in Short Term Load Forecasting (STLF) to make it more effective. Neural Networks (NN) is an effective mapping algorithm that can map complex input-output relationships, which is an important technique to do STLF having existing dataset. Usually a proper NN is sufficient to achieve accepted level of performance. But different load dataset may bear some irregular nature of load demand scenario due to having special events, where accuracy of NN suffers significantly. To enhance the performance for those situations, the authors propose a hybrid STLF approach-Neural Networks and Fuzzy (NNF) method. The authors first try to select the best possible trained NN and do STLF. Considering historical data trend and of existing errors of NN solution, for those special days, NNF determine the Load Change trend. Fuzzy Inference Rules (FIR) have been developed to further improvement by fuzzy method. In fuzzy part the NNF apply FIR on two inputs: STLF of NN and Load Change trend, to enhance the performance of STLF for special events. To evaluate the proposed method it is applied on the dataset of Regional Power Control Center of Saudi Electricity Company, Western Operation Area (SEC-WOA). Since the authors deal with the daily load dataset of Saudia Arabia of Hijri years (Arabian years), Hajj has been chosen as one of the anomalous load scenario. Empirical results show that for Hajj event of Hijri 1428 year, the accuracy of STLF by NN is approximately 6.37%, whereas proposed NNF can decline the error at only 1.92%.