Spatio-temporal Load Forecasting Considering Aggregation Features of Electricity Cells and Uncertainties in Input Variables

Spatio-temporal load forecasting (STLF) is a foundation for building the prediction-based power map, which could be a useful tool for the visualization and tendency assessment of urban energy application. Constructing one point-forecasting model for each electricity cell in the geographic space is possible; however, it is unadvisable and insufficient, considering the aggregation features of electricity cells and uncertainties in input variables. This paper presents a new STLF method, with a data-driven framework consisting of 3 subroutines: multi-level clustering of cells considering their aggregation features, load regression for each category of cells based on SLS-SVRNs (sparse least squares support vector regression networks), and interval forecasting of spatio-temporal load with sampled blind number. Take some area in Pudong, Shanghai as the region of study. Results of multi-level clustering show that electricity cells in the same category are clustered in geographic space to some extent, which reveals the spatial aggregation feature of cells. For cellular load regression, a comparison has been made with 3 other forecasting methods, indicating the higher accuracy of the proposed method in point-forecasting of spatio-temporal load. Furthermore, results of interval load forecasting demonstrate that the proposed prediction-interval construction method can effectively convey the uncertainties in input variables.