Deep belief network based electricity load forecasting: An analysis of Macedonian case

A number of recent studies use deep belief networks (DBN) with a great success in various applications such as image classification and speech recognition. In this paper, a DBN made up from multiple layers of restricted Boltzmann machines is used for electricity load forecasting. The layer-by-layer unsupervised training procedure is followed by fine-tuning of the parameters by using a supervised back-propagation training method. Our DBN model was applied to short-term electricity load forecasting based on the Macedonian hourly electricity consumption data in the period 2008-2014. The obtained results are not only compared with the latest actual data, but furthermore, they are compared with the predicted data obtained from a typical feed-forward multi-layer perceptron neural network and with the forecasted data provided by the Macedonian system operator (MEPSO). The comparisons show that the applied model is not only suitable for hourly electricity load forecasting of the Macedonian electric power system, it actually provides superior results than the ones obtained using traditional methods. The mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) is reduced by up to 8.6% when using DBN, compared to the MEPSO data for the 24-h ahead forecasting, and the MAPE for daily peak forecasting is reduced by up to 21%. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.