Energy Forecasting: Past, Present and Future

This overview paper on energy forecasting is published in the Winter 2014 issue of Foresight: The International Journal of Applied Forecasting. Thanks to the support from the editors of Foresight, the article is available for free download HERE. The working paper version is available HERE.

Citation
Tao Hong, "Energy forecasting: past, present and future", Foresight: The International Journal of Applied Forecasting, pp. 43-48, Winter 20014

Energy Forecasting: Past, Present and Future

Tao Hong

Abstract

When you flick that switch, you expect the lights to go on – but the business of keeping them on is not nearly as straightforward. Dr. Tao Hong offers a practical overview of energy forecasting; it’s an important task, one that electric utilities have been doing daily for over a century, but now with new challenges.

Key Points

• Energy forecasting in the utility industry has several distinct aspects: short-term load forecasting, long-term load forecasting, spatial-load forecasting, price forecasting, demand-response forecasting, and renewable-generation forecasting.
• Energy forecasting practices have gone through several important stages, from an engineering approach with charts and tables in the pre-PC era to today’s more recent computer-based methods. 
• Smart-grid investment and technologies have brought new challenges to the energy forecasting field, such as demand-response forecasting and renewable-generation forecasting. The century-old energy forecasting field has found new life in the smart-grid era.
• Advancement of energy forecasting relies on following rigorous out-of-sample tests, understanding business needs, and learning in an interdisciplinary manner across the fields of statistics, electrical engineering, meteorological science, and more.