Long-term electrical energy demand forecasting by using artificial intelligence/machine learning techniques

Forecasting of long-term annual electricity demand is studied utilizing historical data for electrical energy consumption and socio-economic indicators—gross domestic product, population, import and export values for the case of Turkey between 1975 and 2020. A quadratic model for electrical energy consumption was applied to define the relation between the historical and predicted data. This model used metaheuristic algorithms; genetic algorithms (GA), differential evolution (DE), particle swarm optimization (PSO), artificial intelligence (AI) approaches; neural networks (NN), and adaptive network fuzzy inference systems (ANFIS), and machine learning (ML) applications; all models undergo testing, but the top four models—stepwise linear regression (SLR), NN, Gaussian process regression (GPR) with exponential, and GPR with squared exponential—are selected for additional research to determine the best forecasting model based on their forecasting performance. Comparing the finalized models SLR produced the best forecasting model with a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) value of 2.36%, followed by GA with 2.97%. Turkey’s yearly electrical energy consumption is projected under three possible scenarios through 2030. Finding the most appropriate forecasting model among the models studied for long-term electrical energy forecasting is ultimately the primary goal of this research. Simulations are done on the MATLAB™ platform.