Short-term electricity price and load forecasting in isolated power grids based on composite neural network and gravitational search optimization algorithm

Abstract Electricity price forecasting is a key aspect for market participants to maximize their economic efficiency in deregulated markets. Nevertheless, due to its non-linearity and non-stationarity, the trend of the price is usually complicated to predict. On the other hand, the accuracy of short-term electricity price and load forecasting is fundamental for an efficient management of electric systems. An accurate prediction can benefit future plans and economic operations of the power systems’ operators. In this paper, a new and accurate combined model has been proposed for short-term load forecasting and short-term price forecasting in deregulated power markets. It includes variational mode decomposition, mix data modeling, feature selection, generalized regression neural network and gravitational search algorithm. A mixed data model for the price and load forecast has been considered and integrated with the original signal series of price and load and their decomposition. Throughout this model, the candidate input variables are chosen by a distinct hybrid feature selection. Two reliable electricity markets (Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland and Spanish electricity markets) have been used to test the proposed forecasting model and the obtained results have been compared with different valid benchmark prediction models. Lastly, the real load data of Favignana Island's power grid have been considered to test the proposed model. The obtained results pinpointed that the proposed model’s precision and stability is higher than in other benchmark forecasting models.