IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 36, NO.
3, MAY/JUNE 2000
Neural-Network-Based Demand Forecasting
in a Deregulated Environment
Wiktor Charytoniuk, Member, IEEE, E. Don Box, Wei-Jen Lee, Senior Member, IEEE,
Mo-Shing Chen, Life Fellow, IEEE, Paul Kotas, and Peter Van Olinda, Member, IEEE
Abstract—The traditional approach to load forecasting is based
on processing time series of load and weather factors recorded in
the past. In the dynamic environment of the deregulated power
industry, historical load data may not always be available. This
paper explores the possibility of an alternative approach toward
load forecasting based on indirect demand estimation from avail-
able customer data. This approach requires utilization of demand
models for different customer categories. This paper presents a
neural-network-based method of demand modeling. Neural net-
works are designed and trained based on the aggregate demands
of the groups of surveyed customers of different categories. The
performance of such models depends on the neural network de-
sign and representativeness of the training data. The forecast ac-
curacy is also affected by the forecasted group size, customer char-
acteristics, customer classification system, and the extent of de-
mand survey. This paper discusses the issues of neural network
design and illustrates the proposed method by its application to
forecasting demand of residential customers.
Index Terms—Demand forecasting, neural networks.
I. INTRODUCTION
EREGULATION of the power industry brings an in-
D creased demand for accurate load forecasts in different
scopes in terms of customer number and structure, and time
horizon. Traditionally, a power utility forecasted its total ag-
gregated load to commit its generation resources by processing
time series of load and weather factors recorded in the past.
This approach may not always be possible in the deregulated
environment with new power market participants and dynamic
relations between power providers and users. Historical load
data for the aggregate demand of the current customers of a
power supplier may not be available.
The problem of the shortage of historical load data can be
overcome, usually at an expense of reduced accuracy, by fore-
casting load indirectly based on the available customer data. The
Paper ICPSD 99–22, presented at the 1999 IEEE/IAS Industrial and Commer-
cial Power Systems Technical Conference, Sparks, NV, May 3–6, and approved
for publication in the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS by the
Energy Systems Committee of the IEEE Industry Applications Society. Manu-
script submitted for review May 6, 1999 and released for publication January
26, 2000.
W. Charytoniuk, W.-J. Lee, and M.-S. Chen are with the Energy Systems
Research Center, The University of Texas, Arlington, TX 76019-0048 USA
(e-mail: charytoniuk@uta.edu; wlee@uta.edu; mchen@uta.edu).
E. D. Box, deceased, was with the Energy Systems Research Center, The
University of Texas, Arlington, TX 76019-0048 USA.
P. Kotas was with Consolidated Edison Company of New York, New York,
NY 10003 USA. He is now with Amazon.com, Inc., Seattle, WA 98108-1226
USA (e-mail: kotas@amazon.com).
P. Van Olinda is with Consolidated Edison Company of New York, New York,
NY 10003 USA (e-mail: podhouse@pipeline.com).
Publisher Item Identifier S 0093-9994(00)04393-0.
0093–9994/00$10.00 © 2000 IEEE
893
total load forecast is obtained by aggregating the demand fore-
casts of the groups of customers having similar characteristics.
This forecast approach requires utilization of demand models
for different customer categories.
Customer demand modeling is a complex problem due to a
variety of customer types and relatively limited amount of in-
formation that can be used for model parameter estimation. One
approach to demand modeling lies in utilizing the concept of
synthesizing demand curves by modeling end-use components
[1]–[3]. The demand is broken down into composite customer
classes, usually residential, commercial, and industrial. A cus-
tomer of each class is represented by a set of end-use compo-
nents, i.e., major appliances. The manner of appliances mod-
eling depends on their weather dependence. A weather insensi-
tive appliance is modeled as a function of time (time of day, day
type, and season) while the demand of a weather sensitive ap-
pliance is expressed as a function of time and ambient temper-
ature. For some important weather-dependent appliances, de-
tailed physically based models have been developed. Those in-
clude air conditioners [4]–[6], storage heating [7], and space
conditioning [8]–[10]. References [2] and [11] proposed an in-
clusion of psychological factors into appliance load models. De-
scribed demand models are valuable tools for the analysis of
load management strategies. Their usefulness for demand fore-
casting depends mainly on the availability of relevant data on
customer appliance structures and appliance utilization charac-
teristics.
Another approach, less detailed, is to divide customers into
several categories and to assign each category a typical daily
demand curve, usually normalized. Those curves can be deter-
mined by statistical analyses of representative demand samples
obtained from the standard utility load studies. Reference [12]
presents the method of determining typical load curves from
measurements at the substation bus using Bayesian estimation
techniques. The drawback of this approach lies in the difficulty
of including into the model some features affecting demand, like
weather conditions. Disregarding those features will adversely
affect forecast accuracy.
Another approach for modeling stochastic processes lies in
expressing the actual value of the process as a function of pre-
ceding values and the random noise. As an example of this ap-
proach one can consider the autoregressive integrated moving
average (ARIMA) process, of order (p; d; q)
X X
p q
rd P (t) = r
i d P (t 0 i) + at 0 j at0j (1)
i=1 j=1
894 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 36, NO. 3, MAY/JUNE 2000
where rd is the dth difference operator, at is the white noise
with variance a2 ; and i and j are model parameters [13]. An
application of the ARIMA model requires determining the order
and parameters of the model, which is itself a complex problem
due to the variety of customer types. In addition, such a model
cannot explicitly include demand-affecting factors.
This paper explores a new method for load forecasting in
the absence of historical load data using neural-network-based
customer demand model and data that are readily available at
most utilities, i.e., monthly energy consumption and customer
demand survey data. Neural networks have a good capability of
mapping nonlinear relationships between the demand and de-
mand-affecting factors, can learn those relationships from ex-
amples, and enable easy inclusion of any relevant factors into
the model. Neural networks have been successfully applied for
load forecasting in power systems [14]–[18] with the traditional
approach of processing historical load and weather data. The re-
mainder of this paper describes a neural-network-based demand
model and provides an example of its application for forecasting
demand of residential customers.
II. NEURAL-NETWORK-BASED DEMAND MODEL
All the customers supplied by a particular power provider can
be classified into several categories based on their characteris-
tics, particularly their daily demand curves. If all the customers
of a given category can be considered statistically similar, their
demand can be forecasted using a demand model developed
from a demand survey data conducted for a small sample of
customers of this category. Such a model describes the relation-
ship between the expected customer demand and demand af-
fecting factors, usually time of day, day type, and weather fac-
tors. The modeled demand should be normalized with respect to
the monthly average demand. The average demand can be easily
determined based on the monthly energy consumption and used
for converting relative values to the actual demand of a group of
customers with certain energy usage. In the case when customer
energy consumption is not available, the expected demand per
customer is modeled and the total demand of a group of cus-
tomers is estimated based on the customer number.
The expected normalized demand of a given customer cate-
gory pt can be described as the following function:
w ; w 01; . . . ; w 0 )
pt = f (t; t t t r (2)
where t is time of day and w is a vector of weather factors at
t
time t. This function must be identified from demand survey
data. Usually, demand patterns are appreciably different for
weekdays and holidays as well as for different seasons. A
family of models (2) is required for each customer category.
Based on model (2), a demand forecast for a group of cus-
tomers of certain category for a given time and weather condi-
tions can be determined as
P^t = p^t Pavg ; (3)
where p^t is the expected normalized demand calculated using
(2), and Pavg is the monthly average demand obtained from the
customer monthly energy usage.
If the customer energy consumption is not available and the
simplified model is used, a demand forecast is calculated as
P^t = np^t (4)
where n is the number of customers considered.
If there are I customer categories in the group considered, the
X
total demand is the sum of the demands of different categories
I
Pt;total = Pt;i: (5)
=1
i
Hence, the forecast of the total demand is calculated as its ex-
X
pected value
I
P^t;total = P^t;i: (6)
=1
i
Function f (1) in (2) can be approximated by means of an ar-
tificial neural network trained using demand survey data. Al-
though this eliminates the need for the explicit selection of the
form of function f (1), the quality of the neural network-based
model depends significantly on the neural network design and
training.
There are several tasks associated with the design of a neural
network based demand model: selection of input variables, de-
sign of neural network structure, and training and validation.
The remainder of this section briefly discusses the above tasks.
A. Selection of Input Variables
Neural network input variables are selected from demand-
affecting factors. Those factors may vary from one utility to
another based on the customer characteristics. However, several
factors are commonly used. These are time of day, day of week,
and temperature. Some other weather factors, like humidity or
wind speed, may also be considered.
The fundamental premise in selecting input variables is to use
a parsimonious set of demand affecting factors. The inclusion
of irrelevant or too many mutually correlated variables will in-
evitably lead to difficulty in covering the entire domain of the
input variables by historical data. Only those factors that are
globally relevant, i.e., those which affect demand in a similar
manner throughout the entire spectrum of time and weather con-
ditions, should be included. Otherwise, it is highly probable to
encounter situations when one variable having a value out of the
historical data domain may discard the information contained in
the remaining input variables, which used alone would produce
a reasonable prediction.
A neural network can handle correlated variables, however,
the increased number of input variables requires a larger net-
work and, consequently, increases the training time. The rela-
tionship between the size of a network and the training time
is nonlinear. The training time may disproportionately increase
after a relatively small network enlargement. With many corre-
lated variables, most of the training time is spent on learning
redundant relations.
There are several statistical techniques used in input variable
selection. The significance of the correlation between a poten-
tial input variable and the demand can be determined using some
CHARYTONIUK et al.: NEURAL-NETWORK-BASED DEMAND FORECASTING IN A DEREGULATED ENVIRONMENT
statistical tests based on the linear or nonparametric correlation
coefficients. Regression analysis quantifies the correlation be-
tween the demand and potential explanatory variables. Principal
component techniques allow an original set of correlated vari-
ables to be replaced by a smaller set of mutually uncorrelated
variables without losing much of the information contained in
the original variables.
B. Design of Neural Network Structure
The design of neural network architecture involves making
several decisions regarding the type, size, and number of neural
networks used. As far as the network type is concerned, multi-
layer feedforward neural networks are most commonly chosen
as they have proved their good performance. This network type
is considered in the further discussion.
There is a question of whether to use a day type as an input
variable or to use a separate neural network for each day type.
The authors’ experience indicates that using a separate neural
network for each day type works better. The number of day types
used should be selected carefully. Using too many day types
will reduce the chance of having representative training data for
each network. Often, the weekdays/weekend days classification
is optimal.
To design a multilayer feedforward network, one needs to se-
lect the number of hidden layers, type of connection between
the layers, number of neurons in each layer, and a neuron’s acti-
vation function. A network with one hidden layer is usually suf-
ficient. In practice, a fully connected network with one hidden
layer is a reasonable choice.
Good candidates for an activation function are sigmoid
(S-shaped) functions. The exact shape of the sigmoid function
has little effect on the network performance. It may have
a significant impact on the training speed. Two commonly
used activation functions are logistic and hyperbolic tangent
functions.
The numbers of neurons in the input and output layers are
determined by the number of input and output variables respec-
tively. The nodes in the input layer are used for the distribution
of the inputs to the hidden-layer neurons and are not actual neu-
rons. The output layer has only one neuron, since the network
has only one output—an expected demand at given time and
weather conditions. The output neuron may not have an activa-
tion function in order to eliminate additional errors for extreme
forecasts due to the saturation of the activation function.
The number of neurons in the hidden layer determines the
network’s learning capabilities. The selection of the number of
hidden neurons is the essential issue in network design. A net-
work with too few hidden neurons will not be capable of accu-
rately modeling demand. On the other hand, too many hidden
neurons may force the network to memorize the training data.
The network may perform poorly when applied to different data.
In addition, the hidden-layer size affects the training time. A
general recommendation for solving this problem can be quite
easily formulated. One should select the minimum number of
hidden neurons necessary to model the complexity of the de-
mand—explanatory variables relationships. The implementa-
tion of this rule, however, is not a trivial task.
895
There have been some methods developed for the automatic
selection of the neural network size, known as pruning algo-
rithms [19], [20]. Those algorithms start from selecting a net-
work larger than necessary, train the network, and then remove
any redundant hidden neurons, or redundant links (weights) be-
tween neurons in the general case of a nonhomogeneous net-
work. Pruning is usually done iteratively and it is computation
intensive.
There are several approaches used to identify the redundant
elements. One approach consists in estimating the sensitivity of
the error function to the removal of an element. The elements
with the least effect are then removed. The relevance of the el-
ement can be measured using the first or second derivative of
the error function with respect to the given element that can be
computed during training.
Another pruning approach is to add penalty terms to the
error function so that during training the unnecessary weights
are driven to zero and can be removed. Penalty terms are
constructed in various ways using information on the weight
magnitudes or the variation of the hidden neuron outputs.
C. Training and Validation
Training of a neural network is a process of determining the
network parameters (weights) in order to achieve the desired
objective based on the set of examples called the training set.
Multilayer feedforward neural networks are trained in the su-
pervised manner, i.e., for every input vector, the desired output
vector is given, and weights are adapted to produce the desired
output.
The most commonly used training method is known as the
backpropagation algorithm. There are several versions of this al-
gorithm based on the optimization algorithm applied for weight
adjustment. The historically first, steepest descent method is
rather slow and inefficient. One from among the alternatives is
the conjugate gradient method. This method searches for a min-
imum along so-called conjugate gradient directions. It has an
ability to remember and use the information on the search di-
rection found in the previous steps, thus significantly improving
the speed, as compared to the steepest descent method.
The conjugate gradient method is deterministic. It finds a
local minimum of the error function. To improve its ability to
find the global optimum, it should be employed in conjunction
with some stochastic method, like simulated annealing, as illus-
trated in Fig. 1. The stochastic method performs a search for
possible other minima around the minimum found by the de-
terministic method. The training algorithms that combine those
two methods are called hybrid algorithms. They are very effec-
tive, since the deterministic method is fast, and the stochastic
one assures that the minimum found is close to the global one.
Training data for a neural network used to model the demand
of a given customer category for a particular day type and season
are formed from the relevant demand survey and weather data.
The surveyed customers of that category are divided at random
in two groups—about 80%–90% used for training, and the re-
maining 20%–10% left for validation. All individual customer
demands in each group are added to form an aggregate demand,
896 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 36, NO. 3, MAY/JUNE 2000
Fig. 1. Algorithm of neural network training [21].
which is then normalized with respect to either the average de-
mand or the number of customers. This aggregate demand rep-
resents average (expected) behavior of the customers of a given
category.
The normalized aggregate demand and the corresponding
weather data are used to create training cases. Each case is
made of a vector of the input variables: time of day and weather
factors, and the corresponding output variable—normalized
aggregate demand at that time.
Since some of the input variables may differ significantly in
their values, it is helpful to scale all of the variables to be in the
same range. It helps improve the numerical stability of training
process. A linear mapping of the variables’ extremes to the se-
lected network’s extremes is the most common method. Another
approach is to normalize all variables to have the same average
value and unity standard deviation.
Since acceptable training errors do not always guaranty sim-
ilar network performance for a different set of data, for example,
due to the lack of representativeness of the training set or the
improperly selected network size, it is necessary to validate the
network performance after it is trained. This is usually done
testing the network performance using the 10%–20% of data
excluded from training. If the testing errors are unacceptable,
possible causes should be identified and corrected, and the net-
work should be retrained. The old test set should be included
into the training set. If new relevant data is available, a new test
set should be collected. Otherwise, a new test set is again ran-
domly extracted from the entire training data.
III. COMPUTATIONAL EXAMPLE
This example illustrates the application of the neural-net-
work-based demand model for forecasting demand of a group
of residential customers during one summer month.
The first step is to design and train neural networks for this
customer category for summer. Based on the demand survey
data of individual residential customers for one summer month,
aggregate hourly demands were calculated and then normalized
with respect to the monthly average demand. Daily curves of
actual and normalized hourly demands are presented in Fig. 2.
The aggregate normalized demand and corresponding tem-
perature data were used to design and train two neural networks.
One network was used for weekdays and the other for weekend
days. The potential input variables included time of day t, tem-
peratures T (t); T (t 0 1); . . . ; T (t 0 6), and four-hour integrated
temperature Tintg (t 0 1). The following quantities were selected
as the input variables for both networks: t; T (t), and Tintg (t01).
The normalized aggregate hourly demand was the output vari-
able for each network. The number of hidden neurons was set
to four for both networks. The networks were trained using the
hybrid algorithm described in Section II.
The trained neural networks represent demand models of res-
idential customers during summer. They can be used to fore-
cast normalized demand for given time of day and temperatures.
The normalized demand forecasts are converted to the actual de-
mands of a group of residential customers based on the monthly
average demand as determined by the monthly energy consump-
tion of that group.
To examine the accuracy level that can be obtained with this
customer-based approach to demand forecasting, the trained
neural networks were applied to forecast demand for a different
group of residential customers during one summer month. Their
total energy consumption was 7761 MWh, which translates to
the average monthly demand of 10.43 MW. The demand survey
data for those customers were also available, which allowed the
comparison of the forecasted demand to the actual aggregate
demand of that group. The results for one week are presented
in Fig. 3. The mean absolute percentage error for the entire
month was as follows: 6.5% for weekdays, 5.6% for weekend
days, and 6.3% overall. It must be noticed that the forecast
accuracy may very significantly based on the forecasted group
size, customer characteristics, customer classification system,
and the extent of demand survey.
IV. CONCLUSION
The traditional approach to load forecasting is based on pro-
cessing time series of load and weather factors recorded in the
past. In the dynamic environment of the deregulated power in-
dustry, historical load data may not be available. This paper has
explored the possibility of an alternative approach toward load
forecasting based on indirect demand estimation from available
customer data. The total load forecast can be obtained by aggre-
gating the demand forecasts of the groups of customers having
similar characteristics. This approach requires utilization of de-
mand models for different customer categories.
This paper has presented a neural-network-based method of
demand modeling. Neural networks are capable of mapping
CHARYTONIUK et al.: NEURAL-NETWORK-BASED DEMAND FORECASTING IN A DEREGULATED ENVIRONMENT 897

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

Fig. 2. Actual and normalized demand of a group of residential customers. (a) Actual demand of different customers for one day of July. (b) Expected normalized
demand for the same day of July. (c) Expected normalized demand for weekdays of July. (d) Expected normalized demand for weekend days of July.

nonlinear relationships between the demand and demand

affecting factors, can learn those relationships from examples,
and enable easy inclusion of any relevant factors into the model.
Neural networks are designed and trained based on the aggre-
gate demands of the groups of surveyed customers of different
categories. The performance of such models depends on the
neural network design and representativeness of the training
data. The forecast accuracy is also affected by the forecasted
group size, customer characteristics, customer classification
system, and the extent of demand survey.

(a)
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Dr. E. D. Box passed away on March 6, 1998; however, his
contributions to this paper were significant and the coauthors
wish to acknowledge his effort in the preparation of this paper.

(b)
Fig. 3. Demand forecast of a group of residential customers for one summer
week (Monday–Sunday). (a) Forecast versus actual demand. (b) Percentage
forecast error.
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Wiktor Charytoniuk (A’91–M’95) received the
M.S. degree from the Technical University of
Bialystok, Bialystok, Poland, and the Ph.D. degree
from Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw,
Poland, in 1984 and 1991, respectively, both in
electrical engineering.
He is currently a Faculty Associate in the Energy
Systems Research Center, The University of Texas,
Arlington, prior to which he was with the Technical
University of Bialystok.
E. Don Box received the B.S. degree in electrical en-
gineering from The University of Texas, Austin, and
the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from The University of
Texas, Arlington, in 1963, 1971, and 1997, respec-
tively.
He was with T U Electric for 29 years. After
receiving the Ph.D. degree, he was an Adjunct
Professor at The University of Texas, Arlington. He
passed away on March 6, 1998.
Dr. Box was a Registered Professional Engineer in
the State of Texas.
Wei-Jen Lee (S’85–M’85–SM’97) was born in
1956. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from
National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C.,
and the Ph.D. degree from The University of Texas,
Arlington, in 1978, 1980, and 1985, respectively, all
in electrical engineering.
He joined the University of Texas, Arlington, as
a faculty member and is currently a Professor in the
Electrical Engineering Department. He has been in-
volved in research on power flow, transient and dy-
namic, short circuit, coordination, and power quality
analysis and improvement for electric utility companies. He is also involved in
research on the design of microcomputer-based measurement, control, and pro-
tection equipment for electric power systems.
Prof. Lee is a Registered Professional Engineer in the State of Texas.
Mo-Shing Chen (M’61–SM’69–F’78–LF’97)
received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering
from National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan,
R.O.C., and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from The
University of Texas, Austin, in 1954, 1958, and
1962, respectively.
He is currently a Professor of Electrical Engi-
neering and Director of the Energy Systems Research
Center, The University of Texas, Arlington. He has
served as a Consultant to numerous companies and
government agencies. He has authored more than 60
papers published in refereed journals.
Dr. Chen is a member of Eta Kappa Nu, Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Xi, American So-
ciety for Engineering Education, Texas Society of Professional Engineers, and
the New York Academy of Science. In 1976, he was the first recipient of the
Edison Electric Institute’s Power Engineering Educator Award. He is a Regis-
tered Professional Engineer in the State of Texas.
Paul Kotas received the B.S. degree in engineering
science from the State University of New York, Buf-
falo, and the M.S. degree in mathematics from New
York University, New York, NY, in 1982 and 1987,
respectively.
In 1983, he joined Consolidated Edison Company
of New York, New York, NY, where he was a Se-
nior Engineer in the Computer Applications Engi-
neering Department. He is currently a Director of En-
gineering with Amazon.com, Inc., Seattle, WA.
Mr. Kotas is a member of the Society for Industrial
and Applied Mathematics.
Peter Van Olinda (M’62) received the B.S.E.E. de-
gree from Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, and the
M.S. degree in operations research from Columbia
University, New York, NY, in 1962 and 1982, respec-
tively.
In 1981, he joined Consolidated Edison Company
of New York, New York, NY, where he is currently a
Manager in the Computer Applications Engineering
Department. Prior to joining Consolidated Edison
Company of New York, he was with PSE&G, NJ,
for 16 years.