Electricity rationing and public response

This paper studies the electricity load demand behavior during the 2001 rationing period, which was implemented because of the Brazilian energy crisis. The hourly data refers to a utility situated in the southeast of the country. We use the model proposed by Soares and Souza [Soares, L.J. and Souza, L.R. (2006), “Forecasting electricity demand using generalized long memory”, International Journal of Forecasting, 22, 17-28.], making use of generalized long memory to model the seasonal behavior of the load. The rationing period is shown to have imposed a structural break in the series, decreasing the load at about 20%. Even so, the forecast accuracy is decreased only marginally, and the forecasts rapidly readapt to the new situation. The structural break, as well as the forecast errors from this model, also permits verifying the public response to pieces of information released regarding the crisis.