Electrical load forecasting using support vector machines

In this study, an application with electrical load forecastingan important topic in the electrical industry - has been carried out by a machine learning method which has recently become popular: Support Vector Machines (SVM). Load forecasting with SVM can model the nonlinear relations with the factors that affect the load in addition to the accurate modelling of the load curve at the weekends and on important calendar days. The data gathered from the Istanbul European Side are used as a sample for the application. In addition to the past load data, daily average temperature, calendar days, holidays and electricity price are considered as an attribute in forecasting. The programme LibSVM is used for modelling the system. It is noted that SVM gave satisfactory results.