Hybrid Advanced Optimization Methods With Evolutionary Computation Techniques In Energy Forecasting

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Hybrid Advanced Optimization Methods with Evolutionary Computation Techniques in Energy Forecasting" that was published in Energies

More accurate and precise energy demand forecasts are required when energy decisions are made in a competitive environment. Particularly in the Big Data era, forecasting models are always based on a complex function combination, and energy data are always complicated. Examples include seasonality, cyclicity, fluctuation, dynamic nonlinearity, and so on. These forecasting models have resulted in an over-reliance on the use of informal judgment and higher expenses when lacking the ability to determine data characteristics and patterns. The hybridization of optimization methods and superior evolutionary algorithms can provide important improvements via good parameter determinations in the optimization process, which is of great assistance to actions taken by energy decision-makers. This book aimed to attract researchers with an interest in the research areas described above. Specifically, it sought contributions to the development of any hybrid optimization methods (e.g., quadratic programming techniques, chaotic mapping, fuzzy inference theory, quantum computing, et cetera) with advanced algorithms (e.g., genetic algorithms, ant colony optimization, particle swarm optimization algorithm, et cetera) that have superior capabilities over the traditional optimization approaches to overcome some embedded drawbacks, and the application of these advanced hybrid approaches to significantly improve forecasting accuracy.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Kernel Methods and Hybrid Evolutionary Algorithms in Energy Forecasting" that was published in Energies

Accurate energy forecasting is important to facilitate the decision-making process in order to achieve higher efficiency and reliability in power system operation and security, economic energy use, contingency scheduling, the planning and maintenance of energy supply systems, and so on. In recent decades, many energy forecasting models have been continuously proposed to improve forecasting accuracy, including traditional statistical models (e.g., ARIMA, SARIMA, ARMAX, multi-variate regression, exponential smoothing models, Kalman filtering, Bayesian estimation models, etc.) and artificial intelligence models (e.g., artificial neural networks (ANNs), knowledge-based expert systems, evolutionary computation models, support vector regression, etc.). Recently, due to the great development of optimization modeling methods (e.g., quadratic programming method, differential empirical mode method, evolutionary algorithms, meta-heuristic algorithms, etc.) and intelligent computing mechanisms (e.g., quantum computing, chaotic mapping, cloud mapping, seasonal mechanism, etc.), many novel hybrid models or models combined with the above-mentioned intelligent-optimization-based models have also been proposed to achieve satisfactory forecasting accuracy levels. It is important to explore the tendency and development of intelligent-optimization-based modeling methodologies and to enrich their practical performances, particularly for marine renewable energy forecasting.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Hybrid Advanced Techniques for Forecasting in Energy Sector" that was published in Energies

The use of data collectors in energy systems is growing more and more. For example, smart sensors are now widely used in energy production and energy consumption systems. This implies that huge amounts of data are generated and need to be analyzed in order to extract useful insights from them. Such big data give rise to a number of opportunities and challenges for informed decision making. In recent years, researchers have been working very actively in order to come up with effective and powerful techniques in order to deal with the huge amount of data available. Such approaches can be used in the context of energy production and consumption considering the amount of data produced by all samples and measurements, as well as including many additional features. With them, automated machine learning methods for extracting relevant patterns, high-performance computing, or data visualization are being successfully applied to energy demand forecasting.

The development of kernel methods and hybrid evolutionary algorithms (HEAs) to support experts in energy forecasting is of great importance to improving the accuracy of the actions derived from an energy decision maker, and it is crucial that they are theoretically sound. In addition, more accurate or more precise energy demand forecasts are required when decisions are made in a competitive environment. Therefore, this is of special relevance in the Big Data era. These forecasts are usually based on a complex function combination. These models have resulted in over-reliance on the use of informal judgment and higher expense if lacking the ability to catch the data patterns. The novel applications of kernel methods and hybrid evolutionary algorithms can provide more satisfactory parameters in forecasting models. We aimed to attract researchers with an interest in the research areas described above. Specifically, we were interested in contributions towards the development of HEAs with kernel methods or with other novel methods (e.g., chaotic mapping mechanism, fuzzy theory, and quantum computing mechanism), which, with superior capabilities over the traditional optimization approaches, aim to overcome some embedded drawbacks and then apply these new HEAs to be hybridized with original forecasting models to significantly improve forecasting accuracy.

Accurate forecasting performance in the energy sector is a primary factor in the modern restructured power market, accomplished by any novel advanced hybrid techniques. Particularly in the Big Data era, forecasting models are always based on a complex function combination, and energy data are always complicated by factors such as seasonality, cyclicity, fluctuation, dynamic nonlinearity, and so on. To comprehensively address this issue, it is insufficient to concentrate only on simply hybridizing evolutionary algorithms with each other, or on hybridizing evolutionary algorithms with chaotic mapping, quantum computing, recurrent and seasonal mechanisms, and fuzzy inference theory in order to determine suitable parameters for an existing model. It is necessary to also consider hybridizing or combining two or more existing models (e.g., neuro-fuzzy model, BPNN-fuzzy model, seasonal support vector regression-chaotic quantum particle swarm optimization (SSVR-CQPSO), et cetera). These advanced novel hybrid techniques can provide more satisfactory energy forecasting performances. This book aimed to attract researchers with an interest in the research areas described above. Specifically, we were interested in contributions towards recent developments, id est, hybridizing or combining any advanced techniques in energy forecasting, with the superior capabilities over the traditional forecasting approaches, with the ability to overcome some embedded drawbacks, and with the very superiority to achieve significant improved forecasting accuracy.