Evolving artificial neural networks for short term load forecasting

This paper presents artificial neural networks (ANN) evolved by a genetic a lgorithm for short-term load forecasting. Using real load values and foreca st weather data these ANN have been tested for electric load forecasting on weekdays and weekends. For each day type, the best-evolved artificial neur al network was found capable of accurately forecasting one-day ahead hourly loads. The forecasting results obtained using these best-evolved networks were observed to be consistently superior compared to a commonly used stati stical method. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.