A Unifying Framework of Attention-Based Neural Load Forecasting

Accurate load forecasting is critical for reliable and efficient planning and operation of electric power grids. In this paper, we propose a unifying deep learning framework for load forecasting, which includes time-varying feature weighting, hierarchical temporal attention, and feature-reinforced error correction. Our framework adopts a modular design with good generalization capability. First, the feature-weighting mechanism assigns input features with temporal weights. Second, a recurrent encoder-decoder structure with hierarchical attention is developed as a load predictor. The hierarchical attention enables a similar day selection, which re-evaluates the importance of historical information at each time step. Third, we develop an error correction module that explores the errors and learned feature hidden information to further improve the model’s forecasting performance. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed framework outperforms existing methods on two public datasets and performance metrics, with the feature weighting mechanism and error correction module being critical to achieving superior performance. Our framework provides an effective solution to the electric load forecasting problem, which can be further adapted to many other forecasting tasks.