Correlation and instance based feature selection for electricity load forecasting

Appropriate feature (variable) selection is crucial for accurate forecasting. In this paper we consider the task of forecasting the future electricity load from a time series of previous electricity loads, recorded every 5 min. We propose a two-step approach that identifies a set of candidate features based on the data characteristics and then selects a subset of them using correlation and instance-based feature selection methods, applied in a systematic way. We evaluate the performance of four feature selection methods – one traditional (autocorrelation) and three advanced machine learning (mutual information, RReliefF and correlation-based), in conjunction with state-of-the-art prediction algorithms (neural networks, linear regression and model tree rules), using two years of Australian electricity load data. Our results show that all feature selection methods were able to identify small subsets of highly relevant features. The best two prediction models utilized instance and autocorrelation based feature selectors and an efficient neural network prediction algorithm. They were more accurate than advanced exponential smoothing prediction models, a typical industry model and other baselines used for comparison.