Revisit Neural Network based Load Forecasting

The application of artificial neural network to load forecasting can overcome the problem of dynamic load change, and its ability to adapt to nonlinear relationships makes the prediction result satisfactory. This paper firstly reviews and introduces the concepts and basic principles of load prediction, discusses various methods for load forecasting, and then selects artificial neural network to establish a predictive model. In this paper, the European electric load is predicted with a BP neural network. From the prediction results, it is feasible to use BP neural network for load forecasting, and its accuracy can meet the needs of real-life engineering work. However, BP neural networks have the problem of slow convergence and easily falling into local minimum points. Therefore, this paper also uses three other neural networks for load forecasting, which are Radial Basis Network (RBF), Elman Network, and Long-Short Term Memory Network (LSTM). In the experiment, the four neural networks achieved expected prediction results, and the LSTM network had the best prediction effect. Scientific discussions are offered.