Decision problems of electric power systems: a call for research

Load forecasting is the prediction of the amount of electricity that will be needed to supply a specific service area of customers. These forecasts have been considered an important aspect in operating and planning electric power systems. The load forecast may be viewed, however, as just one input to many decisions under uncertainty being made in a utility company. A description is given of the major decision junctions, treating load as one of the stochastic inputs. The objective is to formulate a series of problem statements that describe the needs of the utility community in the terminology of the decision scientists, thus promoting interest in solving these important large-scale decision-making problems