Machine Learning Applications for Load, Price and
Wind Power Prediction in Power Systems
Michael Negnevitsky, Senior Member, IEEE, Paras Mandal, Member, IEEE, and Anurag K. Srivastava, Member,
IEEE
Abstract— This paper reviews main forecasting techniques
used for power system applications. Available forecasting tech-
niques have been discussed with focus on electricity load and
price forecasting as well as wind power prediction. Forecasting
problems have been classified based on time frame, application
specific area and forecasting techniques. Appropriate examples
based on data pertaining to the Victorian electricity market,
Australia and the PJM electricity market, U.S.A. are used
to demonstrate the functioning of the developed neural net-
work (NN) method based on similar days approach to predict
hourly electricity load and price, respectively. The other impor-
tant problem faced by power system utilities are the variability
and non-schedulable nature of wind farm power generation.
These inherent characteristics of wind power have both technical
and commercial implications for efficient planning and operation
of power systems. To address the wind power issues, this paper
presents the application of an Adaptive Neural Fuzzy Inference
System (ANFIS) to very short-term wind forecasting utilizing a
case study from Tasmania, Australia.
Index Terms— Adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (AN-
FIS), neural network (NN), short-term load forecasting, short-
term price forecasting, very short-term wind power prediction.
I. I NTRODUCTION
F ORECASTING is a vital part of business planning in
today’s competitive environment. With increased penetra-
tion of renewable energy sources and introduction of deregula-
tion in power industry, many challenges have been encountered
by the participants of the electricity market. Forecasting of
wind power, electric loads and energy price have become a
major issue in power systems. Following needs of the market,
various techniques are used to forecast the wind power, energy
price and power demand.
This paper presents machine learning applications to short-
term load forecasting utilizing a case study of the Victorian
electricity market, Australia to demonstrate the functioning of
the developed neural network (NN) model based on similar
days (SD) method [1]. Load forecasting results obtained from
Okinawa Electric Power Co., Japan is also reported where
combination of fuzzy and NN approach is proposed [2].
Integration of NN and SD approach has also been applied
to predict day-ahead electricity price in the PJM electricity
market [3]. In addition, this paper focuses on machine learning
application to wind power prediction in which the authors
M. Negnevitsky and P. Mandal are with the Centre for Renewable Energy
and Power Systems, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia
(e-mail: Michael.Negnevitsky@utas.edu.au, Paras.Mandal@utas.edu.au).
A. K. Srivastava is with the Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762 USA
(e-mail: srivastava@ece.msstate.edu).
978-1-4244-5098-5/09/$26.00 ©2009 IEEE
describe very short-term wind power prediction utilizing a
case study from Tasmania, Australia. Wind power presently
is the fastest growing power generation sector in the world.
However, wind power is intermittent. To be able to trade
efficiently, make the best use of transmission line capability,
and address concerns with system frequency in a re-regulated
system, accurate wind power forecasting in very short-term are
essential. This paper discusses the application of an adaptive
neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) to forecasting a wind
time series [4].
The objective of this paper is to provide a brief overview of
advancement in machine learning applications for forecasting
in power systems with focus on short-term electric load
and price forecasting as well as wind power prediction. The
problems and various available techniques in these areas of
forecasting are discussed.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section II
provides classification of forecasting problems and methods
associated with wind power, electric load and energy price
based on time frame and applications. Case study results of
short-term load and price forecasting, and very short-term
wind power prediction are presented in Section III. Section IV
presents the conclusion of this paper.
II. C LASSIFICATION OF FORECASTING PROBLEMS AND
TECHNIQUES
In this section, we discuss about different forecasting prob-
lems and techniques in the area of electric load forecasting,
energy price forecasting and wind power prediction.
A. Load forecasting
Load forecasting is a process to predict load for a future
period. Application of load forecasting falls into different
time horizons: long-term forecasting (from one year to ten
years), medium-term forecasting (from several months to one-
year), short-term forecasting (from one-hour to one-week)
and real-time or very short-term forecasting (in minutes).
Long-term forecasts influence the decisions on generation
and transmission planning, which is used for determining the
economical location, type, and size of the future power plants.
Medium-term load forecasts are necessary for generation and
transmission maintenance, and also for fuel scheduling. Accu-
rate short-term load forecasts are necessary for unit commit-
ment an economic dispatch. Very short-term load forecasting
is for minutes ahead and is used for automatic generation
control (AGC) [2],[5],[6].
Good confidence level has been achieved in load forecasting
by researchers. Load forecasting have been challenge in the
past due to following reasons. First, because the load series is
complex and exhibits several levels of seasonality: the load at
a given hour is dependent not only on the load at the previous
hour, but also on the load at the same hour on the previous
day, and on the load at the same hour on the day with the
same denomination in the previous week. Secondly, because
there are many important exogenous variables that must be
considered, specially weather related variables [2],[6].
Most forecasting models and methods have already been
tried out on load forecasting, with varying degrees of success.
Some of the models reported in literatures are multiplicative
autoregressive models, dynamic linear or nonlinear models,
autoregressive models, and methods based on Kalman filter-
ing, Box and Jenkins transfer functions ARMAX models,
optimization techniques, nonparametric regression. Several
research works have been carried out on the application of
artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, also termed as machine
learning techniques, to the load forecasting problem. Various
machine learning techniques reported in literatures are expert
systems, fuzzy inference, fuzzy-neural models, artificial neural
network (ANN), data mining, etc. Wu and Lu [7] proposed a
machine learning technique by using data mining approach to
forecast load. Fan et al. [8] discussed on integration of two
machine learning techniques: Bayesian clustering by dynam-
ics (BCD) and support vector regression (SVR) for day-ahead
electricity load forecasting. Among the different techniques
on load forecasting, application of NN technology for load
forecasting in power system has received much attention in
recent years. The main reason of NN becoming so popular lies
in its ability to learn complex and nonlinear relationships that
are difficult to model with conventional techniques [2],[5],[6].
B. Price forecasting
The main objective of electricity market is to maximize
profits. Forecasting loads and prices in electricity markets are
mutually intertwined activities, and error in load forecasting
will propagate to price forecasting. Electricity price has its
special characteristics. The main features that make it so
specific are at least three. One of them is its non-storability of
power, which implies that prices are strongly dependent on the
power demand. Another characteristic is the seasonal behavior
of the electricity price at different level (daily, weekly and
annual seasonality) and the third one is related to the question
of its transportability [3],[6]. Furthermore, electricity price can
rise by tens of or even hundreds of times of its normal value
showing one of the greatest volatilities among all commodities.
Electricity cannot be transported from one region to another
one because of existing bottle-necks or limited transportation
capacity. Application of forecasting methods common in other
commodity markets, can have a large error in forecasting the
price of electricity [6].
In most competitive electricity markets, the hourly price
series have the characteristics such as volatility, non-stationary
properties, multiple seasonality, spikes and high frequency.
These characteristics are due to events that may occur al-
ternatively in a market. For instance, a price spike that is a
randomized event can be caused by market power, and also by
unexpected incidents such as transmission congestion, trans-
mission contingency and generation contingencies. It can also
be influenced by other factors such as fuel prices, generation
unit operation costs, weather conditions, and probably the most
theoretically significant factor, the balance between overall
system supply and demand [3],[6],[9].
Applications of electricity price forecasting fall into differ-
ent time horizons: short-term forecasting, medium-term fore-
casting and long-term forecasting. Market participants need to
forecast short-term (mainly one day-ahead) prices to maximize
their profits in spot markets. Accurate medium term price
forecasts are necessary for successful negotiations of bilateral
contracts between suppliers and consumer. Long-term price
forecasts influence the decisions on transmission expansion
and enhancement, generation augmentation, distribution plan-
ning and regional energy exchange [6].
Electricity price forecasting models include statistical and
non-statistical models. Time-series models, econometric mod-
els and intelligent system methods are the three main cat-
egories of statistical methods. Nogales et al. [10] proposed
time-series model for forecasting next-day electricity prices.
The time-series techniques are successful in the areas where
the frequency of the data is low, such as weekly patterns,
but they can be problematic when there are rapid variations
and high-frequency changes of the target signal. Non-statistical
methods include equilibrium analysis and simulation methods.
Methods based on machine learning techniques, especially the
NNs [3],[9],[11],[12] are more common for electricity price
forecasting due to their capability of learning complex and
non-linear relationships that are difficult to model with conven-
tional techniques. NN approach combined with similar days
method has been discussed by Mandal et al. [3] to forecast
day-ahead prices in the PJM market. Amjadi and Keynia [9]
proposed a machine learning technique by using mutual infor-
mation technique and cascaded neuro-evolutionary algorithm
for day-ahead price forecasting. Other machine learning tech-
nique such as hybrid network of self-organised map (SOM)
and support-vector machine (SVM) has been proposed by Fan
et al. [13] to forecast next-day hourly prices.
C. Wind power prediction
One of the fundamental problems faced by power system
operators is the variability and non-schedulable nature of wind
farm power generation. These inherent characteristics of wind
power have both technical and commercial implications for
efficient planning and operation of power systems. Wind power
prediction systems provide the information how much wind
power can be expected at which point of time in the next
few days. Wind power forecasting is one of the most critical
aspects in wind power integration and operation. It is needed to
estimate the long, medium, and short-term power production.
The long-term forecast is required during the planning stage,
while the medium and short-term forecasts are needed in the
generation commitment and market operation. Long-term wind
power forecasting is based on long term wind patterns, while
medium and short-term forecasts are generally for a few days
(depends on the market operation, generally between one and
three days), and hours to a few minutes, respectively [4].
 When considering the problem of wind power forecasting,
a number of factors need to be considered. The first consid-
eration is the prediction horizon or forecasting time frame
of interest. The broad timescales can be considered as [14]:
(i) Turbulence (1 second−30 minutes); (ii) Synoptic Scale in
the Spectral Gap (30 minutes−6 hours); (iii) Synoptic Scale (6
hours−7 days); and (iv) Climatic Scale (months to years). A
wind forecasting time scale of less than 30 minutes is referred
to as the turbulence time scale or more generally as the very
short-term time scale.
Various studies have been conducted on power fluctuations
from large wind farms and their effects on power system
operations. Large ramp variations in the very short-term time
scale can have significant impacts on both power system
security and (depending on the bidding and dispatch inter-
vals involved) on trading in deregulated electricity markets.
The importance of achieving the best possible wind power
forecasting accuracy in the very short-time scale is thus of
paramount importance during significant large ramp events or
periods of high volatility in wind farm power output [14].
In addition, wind power − electric power generated from
wind kinetic energy − possesses unique characteristics and
attributes that differentiate it from fossil-based electric power.
Unlike fossil- based power, where the rate of energy through-
put is completely controllable, wind power is intermittent,
variable, and non-dispatchable. Indeed, wind generation could
vary according to diurnal heating and cooling patterns or
suddenly increase with a storm front. Without an energy
storage system, wind energy being converted into electric
power has to be consumed immediately. As a result, the
economic value of wind generation is dependent on the relative
synchronized timing of the wind and load patterns. During the
on-peak period of the day, the production of wind generation
commands a high value. While during off-peak periods, wind
generation may provide very little value or could even be cur-
tailed when there is no load to serve. Furthermore, wind power
generation does not lend itself readily to participate in the
traditional generation scheduling process where controllable
generators are scheduled to meet a variable load. Generation
scheduling process with wind power must take into account the
variability and intermittency characteristics. Therefore, certain
power system resources must be allocated separately to hedge
against unavailability and variability of wind power during a
low or no wind condition. These additional reserves increase
the overall generation costs [14],[15].
Several techniques have been identified for wind forecast-
ing. These techniques can be categorized into numeric weather
prediction (NWP) methods, statistical methods, methods based
upon NNs, and hybrid approaches. Statistical analysis of wind
power forecast error was discussed in reference [16] where the
authors showed the usefulness of the forecast error probability
density function (pdf) for finding the optimum rated energy
storage system (ESS) power. Reference [17] discussed NWPs
estimator models based on machine learning technique using
fuzzy logic and wind power forecasting models using NNs
combination. NWP based techniques are well established
for wind parameter forecasting with a prediction horizon of
several hours or more. NWP methods could be the most
accurate technique for short-term forecasting. However, in
general, statistical, NN methods, or several advanced hybrid
methods based on observations perform more accurately over
the very short-term forecast range.
In general, forecasting techniques for very short-term wind
power prediction use recent historical data as inputs to suit-
ably structured models. These techniques include the simple
persistence approach, classical linear statistical models such
as Moving Average (MA), Auto-Regressive Moving Aver-
age (ARMA) and the Box-Jenkins approach based on Auto-
Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) or seasonally
adjusted ARIMA models, also known as SARIMA mod-
els [4],[15].
The statistical time series and NN methods are mostly
aimed at short-term predictions. Typical time series models
are developed based on historical values. They are easy to
model and capable to provide timely prediction. In several
predictions, they use the difference between the predicted
and actual wind speeds in the immediate past to tune the
model parameters. The advantage of the NN is to learn the
relationship between inputs and outputs by a non-statistical
approach.
III. C ASE S TUDY R ESULTS
The case study results presented in this paper mainly
focus on application of machine learning techniques for short-
term load and price forecasting as well as very short-term
wind power prediction. The results are based on the authors’
published works.
A. Load forecasting results
The previous works done by authors in the area of short-
term load forecasting are found in [1], [2] where the authors
have proposed machine learning technique by using NN com-
bined with SD method. SD method adopts the information of
the days being similar to that of the forecast day. Accord-
ing to similar days method, selection of similar load days
corresponding to forecast day is performed by adopting the
Euclidean norm equation [2]. Euclidean norm with weighted
factors is used to evaluate the similarity between a forecast
day and searched previous days. The smaller the Euclidean,
the better the evaluation of similar days.
Short-term load forecasting was carried out based on dif-
ferent time frames, e.g., reference [1] deals with several-
hour-ahead electric load forecasting in which authors have
presented one-to-six hour ahead load forecasting using NNs
using the case study of Victorian electricity market. The actual
and forecast load curves for six-hour-ahead load forecasting
are presented in Fig. 1 where we can observe an improved
accuracy in forecasting as the mean absolute percentage error
(MAPE) by using NN (1.30%) is better compared to SD
approach (1.74%). It is also to be noted that one to six hour
ahead load forecast errors (MAPE) range from 0.56% to 1.30%
in reference [1].
Another work carried out by the authors on next-day load
curve forecasting was presented in reference [2] where the
authors have proposed load forecasting using hybrid correction
method, which is a combination of NN and fuzzy logic using
 80

MAPE: 6.93 % (ANN) Forecasted (ANN):

13.90 % (SD) Actual:
70 Forecasted (SD):

LMP ($/MWh)
60

50

40

30

04:00 08:00 12:00 16:00 20:00 24:00

Fig. 1. Six hour ahead load forecasting (Monday, September 01−Sunday,

Hour
September 07, 2003). Fig. 3. Actual and forecast day-ahead PJM electricity price (Friday, January
1100 20, 2006).
Load [MW]

1000
100
MAPE: 7.66% (ANN) Forecasted
900 90 12.80% (SD) Actual

800 80

LMP ($/MWh)
700 70
: 1. Actual
600 : 2. Similar days 60
: 3. NN
500 : 4. NN+Fuzzy 50

400 40
1 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24
Hour 30
(a)
20
24 48 72 96 120 144 168
Forecasted Error [%]

20
: 1. Similar days
Hour
15 (4.70%)
Fig. 4. Actual and forecast day-ahead PJM electricity price during low
: 2. NN
(2.24%)
demand week (Wednesday, February 1 to Tuesday, February 7, 2006).
10 : 3. NN+Fuzzy
(1.71%)
5 using NN model integrated with SD method [3]. In the
developed price prediction method, day-ahead electricity price
0
is obtained from the neural network that modifies the price
-5
curves obtained by averaging selected number of similar price
days corresponding to forecast day, i.e., two procedures were
-10 analyzed: 1) prediction based on averaging prices of similar
1 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 days and 2) prediction based on averaging prices of similar
Hour
(b) days plus neural network refinement. The developed multi-
Fig. 2. Forecasting results (Monday, July 21, 1997: Substitute holiday). layer feed-forward NN model was trained and tested using the
(a) Forecasted load curves [MW], (b) forecast error [%]. data (from January 1, 2004 to May 31, 2006) derived from the
PJM electricity market. Sets of data include hourly price and
the case study of Okinawa Electric Power Co., Japan. Refer- load data.
ence [2] contributes to machine learning application to day- Figure 3 shows the day-ahead price forecasting results for
ahead load forecast methodology, especially as it shows how January 20, 2006. The forecast results obtained from the
to reduce neural network forecast error over the test period by proposed NN are quite close to the actual LMP values. The
23% through the application of fuzzy logic correction, which prediction behavior of the proposed NN technique for this day
can be observed in Fig. 2(a) and (b). is very appropriate with a daily MAPE of only 6.93%, which
is much lower than that obtained using SD approach (13.90%).
Figure 4 shows the weekly price forecasts for a typical low
B. Price forecasting results demand week. These forecasts are based on day-ahead and
The price forecasting result presented in this paper is based have been represented for a week. As it can be seen from Fig. 4
on the authors previous work on machine learning application that the forecast results obtained from the proposed NN are
to forecast day-ahead electricity price in the PJM market close to the actual LMP values. Also, it can be observed that
when price spikes appear, our model does not forecast price
jumps as in last three days of this week. The weekly MAPE
obtained from the NN approach is 7.66%, which is much lower
than that obtained using the similar days method (12.80%).
Daily and weekly MAPE values obtained from the selected
day and week show that the NN technique outperforms the
direct use of similar days method.

C. Wind power prediction results

The case study presented in [4] used a wind site in Tasmania
as the data set, providing a 21-month time series in steps
of 2.5 min. This was to be the forecast period as well. The
application of a particular type of hybrid intelligent system
called an Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS)
to very short term wind power prediction was investigated. Fig. 5. Chart of prediction errors for various systems, tested over a period
In order to optimize the performance of the ANFIS system, of eight months on a wind site in Tasmania, Australia.
multiple architectures should be evaluated using the same
data set [4]. A persistence model was also developed for
comparison. Persistence is presently an industry benchmark for
very short-term wind forecasting and so is the most indicative
assessment. The ANFIS model was developed in several
different formats. The ANFIS model design is flexible and
capable of handling rapidly fluctuating data patterns [15], [18].
This was to highlight the usefulness of intermediary splines
through data for very short-term forecasting. The results are
shown in Fig. 5. The chart also includes the results from the
persistence model. A useful comparison is available through
considering the persistence results and the ANFIS model with
no spline. The ANFIS model shows some improvement, in the
order of 5%.
In the case study as reported in [4], [15], a suitable ANFIS
model configuration was found to provide an overall perfor-
mance improvement of more than 8% over the industry stan-
Fig. 6. Snapshot of ANFIS model performance for 5 minute ahead wind
dard persistence approach for five minute ahead predictions. power prediction at a US wind farm.
Fig. 6 shows the snapshot of the ANFIS model performance
compared to persistence. Apart from the overall performance
improvement for the entire test period, it was observed that
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V. B IOGRAPHIES

Michael Negnevitsky (M’95-SM’07) received the B.S.E.E. (Hons.) and Ph.D.

degrees from the Byelorussian University of Technology, Minsk, Belarus,
in 1978 and 1983, respectively. Currently, he is Chair Professor in Power
Engineering and Computational Intelligence and Director of the Centre for
Renewable Energy and Power Systems at the University of Tasmania, Hobart,
Australia. From 1984 to 1991, he was a Senior Research Fellow and Senior
Lecturer in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Byelorussian University
of Technology. After arriving in Australia, he was with Monash University,
Melbourne, Australia.
His interests are power system analysis, power quality, and intelligent
systems applications in power systems. Dr. Negnevitsky is a Chartered
Professional Engineer, Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia. He is
also Member of CIGRE AP C4 (System Technical Performance) and CIGRE
AP C6 (Distribution Systems and Dispersed Generation), Australian Technical
Committees, and CIGRE Working Group JWG C1/C2/C6.18 (Coping with
Limits for Very High Penetrations of Renewable Energy), International
Technical Committee.

Paras Mandal (SM’05-M’06) received his B.E. degree in Electrical and

Electronics Engineering from Kuvempu University (now under Visveswariah
Technological University), India in 1998; M.E. degree in the field of Energy,
Economics and Planning from Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand in
2002; and Ph.D. degree from the University of the Ryukyus, Japan in 2005.
He is presently a research fellow at the Centre for Renewable Energy and
Power Systems, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia. From Nov. 2005
to July 2007, he was a JSPS postdoctoral fellow at the University of the
Ryukyus. Then, he worked in the School of Engineering, Yonsei University,
Seoul, South Korea as a Research Professor till January 2008.
His research interests include application of artificial intelligence tech-
niques to electricity load and price forecasting, power system modeling and
power system deregulation. Dr. Mandal is a member of IEEE Power and
Energy Society. Dr Mandal is a recipient of several awards and serves as a
reviewer for IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, international journals and
conferences.