Regional Electricity Load

Forecasting in Saudi Arabia

UPDATE – PART1
OUTLINE
• Objective
• Background
• Model selection
• Current progress
• Remarks
• Bibliography
 OBJECTIVE

Understand the relationship between regional hourly electricity demand and

driver variables in the context of Saudi Arabia

• Support energy sector studies

• Assist operation and planning activities across the company
• Assist development of load profiles for short-term and long-term power systems modeling
 BACKGROUND
Electric Load Forecasting

TEMPORAL RESOLUTION SPATIAL RESOLUTION

• Aggregated load forecasting
• Spatial load forecasting
• Hierarchical load forecasting

OUTPUT FORMAT
• Point load forecasting
• Probabilistic load forecasting
 BACKGROUND
Electric Load Forecasting

TECHNIQUES TECHNIQUES
• Statistical techniques • Artificial intelligence techniques
• Multiple linear regression (MLR) • Artificial neural networks (ANN)
• Semi-parametric additive • Fuzzy regression
• Autoregressive and moving average (ARMA) • Support vector machines (SVM)
• Exponential smoothing • Gradient boosting
• … • …
 BACKGROUND
Electricity consumption in Saudi Arabia

CONSUMPTION BY SECTOR (2017) INTERCONNECTED SYSTEM PROFILE

Residential
2%
Commercial

16% Governmental
2% Agricultural
Industrial
50%
Others
13%
Daily average load
Annual average load

17%
Jan-10 Jan-11 Jan-12 Jan-13 Jan-14 Jan-15 Jan-16 Jan-17
 BACKGROUND
Electricity consumption in Saudi Arabia

Daily demand, temperature and calendar events (2016)

Residential
2%
Commercial

16% Governmental
2% Agricultural
Industrial
50%
Others
13%
Daily average load
Annual average load

17%
Jan-10 Jan-11 Jan-12 Jan-13 Jan-14 Jan-15 Jan-16 Jan-17
 MODEL SELECTION
Monash Electricity Forecasting Model
∗
log 𝑑𝑡,𝑝 = log 𝑑𝑡,𝑝 + log 𝑑ഥ𝑖
Long-term annual/seasonal model (demographics, economic variables)

Half-hourly model (calendar, weather variables)

Semi-parametric additive model for probabilistic electric load forecasting:

• Models dynamic non-linear relationships between drivers and electricity usage
• Used by the Australian Energy Market Operator for long-term load forecasting (LTLF)
• Can me modified for use in short-term load forecasting (STLF)
 MODEL SELECTION
Monash Electricity Forecasting Model log 𝑑𝑡,𝑝 = log d∗t,p + 𝐥𝐨𝐠 𝐝ഥ𝐢
𝐽

log 𝑑ഥ𝑖 = log ෍ 𝐶𝑗 𝑍𝑗,𝑖 + 𝜖𝑖

𝑗=1
Demographic, economic and other effects (population, GSP, price indicator, degree days)

Annual sub-model:
• Accounts for variables that affect long-term usage pattern
• Input variables are selected using Akaike’s Information Criteria
• Variables are estimated linearly against average demand per capita (𝑑ഥ𝑖 𝑝𝑐 = 𝑑ഥ𝑖 /𝑃𝑖 )
 MODEL SELECTION
Monash Electricity Forecasting Model log 𝑑𝑡,𝑝 = 𝐥𝐨𝐠 𝐝∗𝐭,𝐩 + log 𝑑ഥ𝑖

∗
log 𝑑𝑡,𝑝 = ℎ𝑝 𝑡 + 𝑓𝑝 𝑥𝑡 + 𝑒𝑡
Weather effects (recent temperature at 2 locations)

Calendar effects (time of year, day of week, public holidays)

Half-hourly sub-model:
• Accounts for variables that affect short-term usage pattern
• Input variables are selected by minimizing errors (RMSE/MAPE) on cross-validation samples
• Model for each half-hour is fitted separately
 APPLICATION
Structure of the interconnected system

Regional segregation:
4 major regional electricity
companies merged into a single
Central vertically integrated company
Western

Eastern

Southern
 APPLICATION
Demographics in Saudi Arabia
Population (2017): 33.0M
Major population center
Riyadh 7.2M
Dammam 1.7M
Hasa 0.8M
Jeddah 4.6M
Makkah 2.0M
Taif 0.7M
Jazan 1.5M
Abha 0.5M
Baha 0.5M
19.5M
Central
Eastern
Western
Southern
 CURRENT PROGRESS
Hourly sub-model estimation ∗
log 𝑑𝑡,𝑝 = 𝒉𝒑 𝒕 + 𝑓𝑝 𝑥𝑡 + 𝑒𝑡

ℎ𝑝 𝑡 = 𝛼𝑡,𝑝 + 𝛽𝑡,𝑝 + 𝛾𝑡,𝑝 + 𝑙𝑝 𝑡

Calendar variables:
• 𝛼𝑡,𝑝 : day of the week
• 𝛼𝑡,𝑝 : flag for workdays
• 𝛼𝑡,𝑝 : accounts for major holidays (eids, national day)
• 𝑙𝑝 𝑡 : time of year pattern, tied to week number (regression spline)
 CURRENT PROGRESS
Hourly sub-model estimation ∗
log 𝑑𝑡,𝑝 = ℎ𝑝 𝑡 + 𝒇𝒑 𝒙𝒕 + 𝑒𝑡

3 3

𝑓𝑝 𝑥𝑡 = ෍ 𝑓𝑘,𝑝 𝑥𝑡−𝑘 + ෍ 𝑔𝑗,𝑝 𝑥𝑡−24𝑗 + 𝑞𝑝 𝑥𝑡+ + 𝑟𝑝 𝑥𝑡− + 𝑠𝑝 𝑥ഥ𝑡

𝑘=0 𝑗=1

Weather variables:
• 𝑓𝑘,𝑝 𝑥𝑡−𝑘 : temperature at site, along with hourly lags (3 hours lags)
• 𝑔𝑗,𝑝 𝑥𝑡−24𝑗 : daily lags for temperature at site (3 days lags)
• 𝑥𝑡+ : max of temperature in the past 24 hours
• 𝑥𝑡− : min of temperature in the past 24 hours
• 𝑥ഥ𝑡 : average temperature in the past 24 hours

All functions are estimated using smooth regression splines

 CURRENT PROGRESS
Hourly sub-model testing
• Each region treated independently
• Coefficients for regional models estimated using date between 2010 and 2016
• Results evaluated with cross-validation of every year
• Some regions/years perform much better than others

CROSS-VALIDATION USING MAPE

EOA COA WOA SOA
2010 2.47 3.81 4.37 3.50
2011 2.22 3.50 5.19 3.90
2012 2.48 3.43 4.12 6.43
2013 2.81 4.26 3.80 3.84
2014 2.11 3.26 3.82 3.47
2015 2.54 3.96 4.59 3.88
2016 2.54 3.52 4.37 3.99
 CURRENT PROGRESS
Sub-hourly model testing

MEFM FIT VS ACTUAL DEMAND – CENTRAL REGION (GW)

25
Actual

20 MEFM

15

10

0
1/1/2016 3/2/2016
3/1/2016 5/3/2016
5/1/2016 7/4/2016
7/1/2016 9/3/2016
9/1/2016 11/4/2016
11/1/2016
 CURRENT PROGRESS
Sub-hourly model testing

Snapshot of the month of June (GW)

25 20

18
20

16
15
14

10 Actual
12
MEFM
10
5
7/1/2016 7/8/2016 7/15/2016 7/22/2016 7/29/2016

0
1/1/2016 3/2/2016
3/1/2016 5/3/2016
5/1/2016 7/4/2016
7/1/2016 9/3/2016
9/1/2016 11/4/2016
11/1/2016
 CURRENT PROGRESS
Substitution of 2015 temperature profile in 2016 model
Monthly energy demand – Eastern region (GWh) Monthly energy demand – Central region (GWh)
14000 14000
2015 Met
12000 12000
10000 2016 Met 10000
8000 8000
6000 1.6% 6000 2.2%
4000 4000
2000 2000
0 0
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Monthly energy demand – Western region (GWh) Monthly energy demand – Central region (GWh)
12000 4000
10000
3000
8000
6000 2000
4000
-1.6% 1.0%
1000
2000
0 0
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
 REMARKS
• Hourly sub-model performs well and can support analysis of historical data and trends
• Further research needed to evaluated other drivers (humidity, heat index …)
• Limited meteorological data available
• Imprecision and lack of treatment of meteorological data can impact model accuracy
• Work needs to be done on the annual sub-model to make the model complete
• Regional economic and other long term information is not available at the moment
• Other forecasting techiques and methods should be evaluated
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Arango, S. (2018). Kingdom Utilities Power and Fuel Annual Report. Report for Saudi Aramco
• Fan, S., & Hyndman, R. J. (2012). Short-Term Load Forecasting Based on a Semi-Parametric Additive Model. IEEE Transactions on Power
Systems, 27(1), 134–141. doi: 10.1109/tpwrs.2011.2162082
• Hong, T., & Fan, S. (2016). Probabilistic electric load forecasting: A tutorial review. International Journal of Forecasting, 32(3), 914–938.
doi: 10.1016/j.ijforecast.2015.11.011
• Hyndman, R. J., & Fan, S. (2014). Monash Electricity Forecasting Model.
• Hyndman, R. J., & Fan, S.(2015). Forecasting long-term minimum half-hourly electricity demand for South Australia. Report for Australian
Energy Market Operator (AEMO)
• Hyndman, R. J., & Fan, S.(2015). Forecasting long-term peak half-hourly electricity demand for New South Wales. Report for Australian
Energy Market Operator (AEMO)
• Lilley, W. (2017). Temperature effects on SEC demand. Report for Saudi Aramco
• Perperoglou, A., Sauerbrei, W., Abrahamowicz, M., & Schmid, M. (2019). A review of spline function procedures in R. BMC Medical
Research Methodology, 19(1). doi: 10.1186/s12874-019-0666-3
THANK YOU