| Summary: | A hybrid feature selection (HFS) algorithm to obtain the optimal feature set to attain optimal forecast accuracy for short-term load forecasting (STLF) problems is proposed in this paper. The HFS employs an elitist genetic algorithm (EGA) and random forest method, which is embedded in the load forecasting algorithm for online feature selection (FS). Using selected features, the performance of the forecaster was tested to signify the utility of the proposed methodology. For this, a day-ahead STLF using the M5P forecaster (a comprehensive forecasting approach using the regression tree concept) was implemented with FS and without FS (WoFS). The performance of the proposed forecaster (with FS and WoFS) was compared with the forecasters based on J48 and Bagging. The simulation was carried out in MATLAB and WEKA software. Through analyzing short-term load forecasts for the Australian electricity markets, evaluation of the proposed approach indicates that the input feature selected by the HFS approach consistently outperforms forecasters with larger feature sets.
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