Demand Forecasting in Residential Distribution
Feeders in the Context of Smart Grids
Bruno Pires Campos
Milton Rafael da Silva
Federal University of Itajuba
Itajub, Minas Gerais, Brazil
brunopcampos10@gmail.com; miltonrafa@yahoo.com.br
AbstractInvestments on smarter solutions for power systems
are currently growing and many large Smart Grid projects are
underway throughout the world. With photovoltaic and wind
power generation, consumers will also be able to produce and
sell energy. This distributed generation will require a very
efficient management of the power system. In this context, smart
meters will be crucial tools to measure and monitor the systems
performance. Each house will have a smart meter acquiring data
uninterruptedly, creating a large amount of data, which will
have to be processed into useful information for strategic
decisions. This paper analyses the forecasting of residential load
demand, using Auto Regressive with Exogenous Inputs (ARX),
Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) and Artificial Neural
Networks optimized by Genetic Algorithm (ANN-GA). The
procedure that achieved best predictions was ANN working with
GA.
Keywords Artificial neural networks, Autoregressive process;
Demand forecasting; Genetic algorithms; Smart grids;
I. INTRODUCTION
With the advent of Smart grids [17], nowadays, electricity
consumers can manage their consumption for many reasons, like
economic, reliability, or environmental purposes [1]. Consumers
can react to the fluctuations in electricity price what influences
the demand side management (DSM) [6]. According to [2],
Smart grids are intelligent power grids that execute autonomous
adaptation of their components in order to optimize resource
consumption (e.g., minimize energy transport; reshape demand
through the usage of automated devices in smart homes).In this
scenario, the use of smart meters is crucial. They are responsible
for measuring the condition of the local residential grid and feed
the management system, which will store and process this
information. The main goal is to transform this data into useful
information for strategic decisions such as network expansion,
replacement or reinforcement of assets. On the distributed
generation, each consumer will be able to supply energy too,
and they will be able to choose more profitable time to save and
store (battery charging) or to sell energy, because the price
fluctuates with load demand. It also promises to be
advantageous for power generators, because at peak demands,
energy price will be high and consumers will save and sell their
energy, then the peak will decrease and power system can work
safer, avoiding the need of standby capacity of power plants
[3]. So, the peak demands are important points for Smart grid
regulation, and forecasting that moment is indispensable.
According to [4] forecasting algorithms could save up to
0.5M$/MW per year in renewable energy sector and about
10% of this value come from gains at operational efficiency.
In [13], forecasting is defined as making calculations or
predictions of a future event or condition based on analysis or
studies of historical data, events or observations. One point
needs careful attention when talking about forecasting
algorithms, the selection of input data that will compose the
model; it needs to have high correlation with the model output.
Short-term forecasting (one hour to several hours ahead) is
useful for planning economic load dispatch and operation
security in electricity market [5;6;7]. Forecasting of one week
ahead (medium-term) is proper for unit commitment decision,
reserve and generator decisions [5].
However, according to [8], it is very difficult to forecast the
electricity load accurately, because the electric load is affected
by various variables, such as social factors, economic
situations, irregular behaviors and other non-linear factors.
It is known that load and energy production forecasting has
always been decisive for the effectiveness of power system
planning and operation [9]. Many electric power companies
forecasts power demand based on traditional prediction
methods. However, the relationship between power load and
factors influencing power production is nonlinear, so it is
difficult to identify its nonlinearity by using traditional
prediction methods [4]. Advanced forecasting through
evolutionary computation techniques help with reliable
production predictions and the planning for additional power
supply, to act proactively. This aspect impacts on the economic
balance of the systems especially in an integrated smart grid
solution perspective [4]. Conventional methods in short-term
load forecasting are: regression models, ARIMA, ARX,
ARIMAX or SARIMAX models, Box and Jenkins transfer
functions, optimization techniques, non-parametric regression,
structural models, curve adjustment procedures. There are
more recent methods whose results are compared with the ones
mentioned such as Expert systems, Artificial neural networks,
Fuzzy inference and Neuro-fuzzy models [9].
Related with the size of the power grid and its load forecasting,
in a conventional power system, variations of different loads
inside the system may neutralize or attenuate oscillations effect
of each other on the total demand, resulting in fewer variations
and especially less outliers in system load [14]. On the other
hand, smaller system size of microgrids causes weaker
smoothing effect of load aggregation, leading to higher sharper
variations in a microgrid load. It is well known that volatility
and predictability of a time series are tightly linked, the higher
the volatility, the lower the predictability [14]. So, modeling and
forecasting the load time series of a microgrid can be more
complex, compared to the load of a conventional power system.
In this paper, three approaches are applied to model the energy
consumption forecasting. First it is presented a classical
solution, autoregressive with exogenous inputs (ARX) model.
Second, it is presented Artificial Neural Networks (ANN),
which is an artificial intelligence technique and more recent than
ARX. And, finally, it is presented Artificial Neural Networks
optimized by Genetic Algorithms (GA) which is proposed to
improve the results of ANN, selecting best data driven for ANN
training [16]. These approaches were implemented and
compared with one another for predicting a week-ahead
electricity consumption of residential customers from historical
smart meter data and weather information [13].
II. ARX MODELS
Between the conventional methods in short-term load
forecasting, there is ARX model, a linear regression method. In
this approach, there is no knowledge about that physical
equations that describe the process or phenomenon to be studied
[15]. In this approach, the goal is to find a mathematical model
that describes the relation between inputs and outputs through
samples acquisition of the real process. Figure 1 shows the
structure of the identification method. The four steps off
identification are: 1) Input and output data acquisition of the
system; 2) Choice of the model structure; 3) Parameters
estimation; 4) Model Validation [11].
A very important factor for a successful identification is the
correct choice of the model structure (step 2), that will be used
to compose the model [15]. At ARX models, it is required to
find the parameters of the mathematical relation between inputs
and outputs considering exogenous influences of factors that
have high correlation with system outputs.
Figure 1. System Identification
The used method for parameters estimation (step 3) is the Least-
Square which minimizes the square error between the real and
estimated value through the equation of the model parameters:
e = (XTX)-1XTY (1)
e is the vector of estimated parameters, X is the matrix of
regressors and Y is the output vector.
III. ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS
Another interesting method is the artificial neural networks.
Artificial neural networks (ANN) are computer systems based
on the operation of human brain, namely large amount of
information processors elements highly connected to
themselves and capable of assimilating knowledge by training.
The basic element of this network is called a neuron and it
operates as follows: inputs are multiplied by synaptic weights
and are combined through a weighted sum. The result of this
combination then passes through a neuron activation function
that will determine the output [12]. Two important parameters
used in the network are training rate and stop criteria of
training. The first is a number between 0 and 1 that indicates
the learning speed and must be carefully dimensioned to avoid
over training that is nothing more than the network lose its
ability of generalization, when the net is so specialized that the
errors between the real data and the net output is too low, but
this error can become too high for a different set of inputs. The
stop criteria may be maximum number of cycles. It can also be
taken into account a minimum error as stop, but this method
can generate an increased training time and / or super training.
There are basically two types of training: the supervised one
and the unsupervised one. The supervised training works with
a tutor indicating the network a desired answer to the sets of
inputs, but in the unsupervised one there is no such statement,
i.e., the network organizes itself to set an exit.
MLP (Multi-layer Perceptron) net was made possible thanks to
the development of the algorithm back propagation error. Such
algorithm works in two steps: first, the outputs are processed
and the processing flows by layers until the output layer which
occurs the comparison between the obtained and expected
output for that set of inputs, which generates an error, from this
error it is obtained the gradient that is propagated on the
opposite direction to the initial flow in order to adjust network
parameters aiming to minimize the error [12]. The activation
function used was sigmoid.
IV. GENETIC ALGORITHMS
Among the approaches of the evolutionary computation
techniques, used in advanced forecasting is Genetic Algorithms
(GA). Genetic Algorithms (GA) are optimization and
stochastic searching techniques inspired in the theory of natural
selection of Charles Darwin, described in his famous book
The Origin of Species. The basic operation of the GA is to
generate an initial population constituted of individuals; each
individual is a solution of the problem at hand. From that,
individuals are selected by an evaluation function, which the
best evaluated individuals are selected for designing the next
generation, passing through some processes such as crossover
and mutation. This procedure is repeated until the defined stop
criterion is satisfied [10]. Fundamentally, Genetic Algorithms
are consisting of the following steps:
Selection: aims to perpetuate the individuals
characteristics with the highest fitness levels. This index is
measured through a function called Fitness Function and
individuals are classified from the fittest to the less fit. The
Fitness Function depends on the problem at hand to be
drawn up.
Crossover: It is the process in which individuals
exchange parts of their information generating new
individuals, which guarantees to the offspring
characteristics of interest and enables the search for new
solutions and possibly more apt.
 Mutation: It is a mechanism that randomly changes parts
of individuals, for example, the state change of a particular
bit. This is of interest, because it generates diversity in the
population, it causes new possibilities to be tested, as well
as it can be helpful in the bypass some solution at a local
minimum convergence. But if it is too high, the search can
become essentially random by not preserving features
already selected.
V. METHODOLOGY
The proposal is to get a model of load consumption, based on
past patterns, that is able to forecast future loads. System
identification techniques were used. This is based on the
approach where the system is unknown but its inputs and
outputs are known. The goal is to get a relation between these
inputs and outputs that describes the real system into a model.
The outputs of the model are future load data. An important
point is to properly select the model inputs. These inputs must
have high correlation with outputs to produce efficient model.
Talking about load forecasting, information about past load data,
time of the day, and weather conditions are usually correlated
with load consumption. In this paper 11 kinds of inputs are used:
Table 1: Model inputs
Past data Time Weather
Load measure of Hour of the load Temperature
day before at same output
time of load output
Load measure of Minute of the load
last week at the output
same day and time
of the load output
Load measure of Week day of the Relative Humidity
lasts 15 minutes load output
Load measure of
lasts 30 minutes Month day of the
load output
Mean of the last 24
hours of load
measures
The first column of Table 1 treats about past data of energy
consumption. The data tends to have the same behavior at the
same hour of day (Load measure of day before at same time of
load output and Load measure of last week at the same day
and time of the load output). Short past data can give an idea
about the tendency of demand in that period (Load measure of
lasts 15 minutes, Load measure of lasts 30 minutes), for
example, if the energy consumption was low 15 minutes ago,
the demand on next 15 minutes will probably remain low.
Following this idea, if the consumption was high at last day,
there is a good chance of this demand remains high at next day
maybe because of its a cold period and the heat system is being
more required (Mean of the last 24 hours of load measures).
The second column of Table 1 is linked with time information of
demand. These data are useful to track consumers pattern, as
the load patterns differ among weekday, weekends and holydays
(Week day of the load output). These data tends to be similar
at same period of day, for example the peak of consumption
are usually at the same hour of day (Hour of the load output
and Minute of the load output). Demand pattern is also
linked with seasons and its months, at warm countries, heat
system and fans are more used at summer months then at
winter months (Month day of the load output).
So, information about weather is usually high correlated with
energy consumption. Weather data is especially crucial for
photovoltaic systems (PV) and wind power forecasting, where
generation is intermittent. Cloudy day means low energy from
PVs. A day with draughts prevision means high power
generation at wind farms Because of that, the variables of third
column of Table 1 are related with weather (Temperature
and Relative Humidity). The identification algorithm is fed
with these inputs and then simulates correspondent future load
measures (model outputs), minimizing the error between
simulated and real data. When the identification process
(Figure 1) is done, the model can be used to forecast, and this
prediction measure can feed the model to produce new
predictions in advance, in close-loop iteration:
In this work different models obtained through three
different algorithms are compared:
1) Autoregressive with exogenous inputs (ARX).
2) Neural Network
3) Neural Network and Genetic Algorithm.
Load data are obtained from 190 houses at a city on the south
of Netherlands with smart meters distributed between 5 feeders
that measure load consumption from 15 to 15 minutes. The
metering period was 2 months, from 24 December 2009 to 26
February 2010. It was also taken into account data from air
temperature and relative humidity from the studied region. One
important point, as first step, is to assure the data present the
minimum level of noise possible. The noise can be from many
sources, such as uncertainties on metering or processing
system, external events, etc. So, the data were filtered with a
moving average filter with window size of 3 samples to avoid
training with wrong data.
A. ARX
As mentioned in section II, four steps are required for ARX
implementation. The first step of data acquisition is previously
described (data from smart meters). The second step, about the
model structure, follows the choices of the input data (Table 1):
( ) = 1. ( 96) + 2. ( 672) + 3. ( 1) +
4. ( 2) + 5. 1( ) + 6. 2( ) + + 11. 7( ) (2)
Where,
Y(t): Load forecasting
Y(t-96): Load measure of day before at same time of load
output
Y(t-672): Load measure of last week at the same day and time
of the load output
Y(t-1): Load measure o last 15 min
Y(t-2): Load measure of last 30 min
X1: Hour of the load output
X2: Minute of the load output
X3: Relative humidity
X4: Temperature
X5: Mean of the last 24 hours of load measures
X6: Month day of the load output
X7: Week day of the load output
a1, a2 a11: model coefficients
The third step needs data organization into a matrix of
regressors with inputs (X) and the output vector (Y):
Where,
n = number of inputs.
The last step is to run the Least-Square equation (equation 1) to
obtain the model coefficients.
B. ANN
The kind of ANN used at this work was Multi-Layer
Perceptron (MLP) with supervised training function Levenberg-
Marquardt backpropagation and Gradient descent with
momentum backpropagation as learning function. The ANN
pre-steps are very similar to the ARX. It uses the same
organization of the data into inputs (X) and targets (Y). The
neurons will be trained so when the first line of X is input, net
output will be the simulation of the first value at Y, and
consecutively for the other inputs and correspondent targets.
ANN is trained to minimize the error between real targets and
simulated outputs. Training process continues until the stop
criterion is reached, a minimum preset value of mean-square-
error between real data and net outputs at validation step.
It was uses a Multi-Layer-Perceptron ANN with back
propagation error, the activation function is sigmoid. An
important parameter is the number of neuron at hidden layer.
This number cannot be too low; else the training process will be
too slow and even inefficient. Also, it cannot be too high,
avoiding overspecialization. For this article, 8 neurons are
chosen at hidden layer because exploratory tests showed better
results with this number for that load data set.
C. ANN and GA
GA is an optimization tool and it is used to improve the
results of ANN implementation. As previously mentioned, a
relevant point at identification process is the correct selection of
inputs that must have high correlation with the system outputs.
At ANN procedure 11 inputs from Table 1 were chosen, but
there is a possibility that not all of them might have influence on
outputs. For this reason, GA is used to select the best inputs for
ANN modeling.
The individual GA is an array with eleven elements that can
only assume 0 or 1. Each element is linked with one input.
When the element is 0, that input will be discarded at ANN
training. For example, if the individual is [1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1]
all inputs will be considered, and result will be the same at
section above (V.B). But if the individual is
[1,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0], only the 1st , 3rd and 9th inputs of
equation 2 will be used to train the net, so the input matrix
would be:
The targets vector (Y) is always the same. Initially, GA
function generates a set of eleven-element arrays with different
combinations of 0 and 1 (GA population). Each one is a GA
individual and represents a set of inputs for the model that is
used as data driven to train a net. After the training step, GA
evaluation function measures the error between real and
simulated data from the net for each individual. The individual
which produces the lowest error will be selected. Then the net
trained with the data driven from the chosen GA individual
will be used to produce prediction data. The GA process
continues until the stop criterion is reached. For this paper, the
limit number of generations used is 15.
D. Error Analysis
Two methods are used to analyze the error between real and
simulated data produced by the models. One is the mean-square-
error (MSE):
( )
MSE(t) = (3)
MSE was also used at evaluation function on GA procedure and
at ANN training validation.
The other is mean-absolute-percentage-error (MAPE):
%
MAPE(t) = (4)
Where,
At= Actual value
Ft= Forecasting value
n= Number of measures
MAPE is better to compare results with different magnitudes
of real measures, because it is relative to error percentage from
each value of load.
VI.RESULTS
To test the methodology the data from a residential feeder was
used. The load data used at ARX modeling and at training on
ANN and ANN with GA was from 24 December 2009 to 19
February 2010. The load data used to validate the model and get
the errors of forecasting compared to real data was from 20
February 2010 to 26 February 2010 (1 week).
At ARX identification the model coefficients (equation 2) were:

Table 2: ARX model coefficients

Coefficients Inputs
0,068 Y(t-96)
0,076 Y(t-672)
0,023 X1
0,021 X2
-0,003 X3
0,008 X4 Figure 3: ANN Forecasting and real data (Feeder 1).
0,051 X5
0 X6
0,008 X7
1,416 Y(t-1)
-0,617 Y(t-2)

The most important was Load measure of last 15 min and

Month day of load output was discarded from model. At
identification with ANN and GA, the selected individual was
[1,1,1,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1]. Relative humidity and Minute of the
load output were excluded from the model. Then, the models
were used to forecast one week of load consumption. These
predictions are compared with real data in Figures 2, 3 and 4.

Figure 4: ANN with GA Forecasting and real data (Feeder 1).

These previsions can be evaluated on next table:

Table 3: Prevision errors (Feeder 1)

Prediction MSE MAPE
ARX 3.7859 22.3121
ANN 3.4378 20.1635
GA ANN 3.1134 16.6226

The best prevision was from the ANN with GA procedure.

The methodology was also tested for the sum of load from the
five feeders. The prevision errors were:

Table 4: Prevision errors (Sum of feeders)

Figure 2: ARX Forecasting and real data (Feeder 1).
Prediction MSE MAPE
ARX 101.207 9.7363
ANN 96.7715 9.29
GA ANN 97.9105 9.0402

In comparison with feeder 1 results, the sum of feeders had

worse results from MSE view, but it is because the magnitude of
the load measures is bigger than the feeder 1 data. When looking
at MAPE error, it can be seen that sum of feeder was easier to
forecast. Below, its shown the prevision by ANN and GA
technique:
 each other when summed on bigger grid. It shows the worst
condition on load forecasting at residential Smart Grid view
with lower smoothing effect and evident outliers on load
demand.

VIII. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Dr.

Paulo F. Ribeiro, MSc. Roberto S. Netto and Dr. Ballard
Asare-Bediako to this paper.This work was funded by CAPES.

Figure 5: ANN and GA Forecasting and real data (all feeders).
For this case, GA selected individual [1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,1,1,1], e.g., it
discarded Month day of the load output from the model.
These results were calculated through a computer with Intel(T)
Core(TM) i3-2350M CPU @ 2.30Ghz, 4.00 GB RAM, running
the MATLAB R2010b 64 bits. The processing time for each
approach is shown next:
Table 5: Processing times
Technique Computational Time (s)
ARX 0.019
ANN 4.624
ANN and GA 1441.374
These times are needed to obtain the mathematical model (ARX),
the net trained (ANN) and net trained with best inputs (ANN and
GA).
VII. CONCLUSION
The three techniques properly forecasted the tendency of real
data. It can be seen that the procedure that achieved best
predictions was ANN working with GA. For both applications,
load consumption of Feeder 1 and of sum of all five feeders,
ANN and GA produced best results and showed that discarding
some inputs can improve results and can bring savings with
sensors, data acquisition, data processing, computational cost
and time.
The three methods have different velocities at modeling. The
quickest is ARX, because there is no training step, and it also
scales the most important inputs through its coefficients. The
ANN takes longer because it needs a training phase. The ANN
and GA is the longest because for each tested data driven there
is a training phase. But this modeling process is just needed
once to get the tendency of real data into a mathematical model
or trained ANN. Then the work is just to feed the model or net
with correct inputs and get forecasting data as outputs.
Other point was on the methodology application to sum of
feeders, which showed better MAPE results than on application
to Feeder 1. It proves the smoothing effect on load aggregation
at bigger grids where variation effects off small grids cancel
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