Machine-Learning based methods in short-term load forecasting

Short-term load forecasting is of great significance to the secure and efficient operation of power systems. However, loads can be affected by a variety of external impact factors and thus involve high levels of uncertainties. So it is a challenging task to achieve an accurate load forecast. This paper discusses three commonly-used machine-learning methods used for load forecasting, i.e., the support vector machine method, the random forest regression method, and the long short-term memory neural network method. The features and applications of these methods are analyzed and compared. By integrating the advantages of these methods, a fusion forecasting approach and a data preprocessing technique are proposed for improving the forecasting accuracy. A comparative study based on real load data is performed to verify that the proposed approach is capable of achieving a relatively higher forecasting accuracy.