Evaluating the effectiveness of parametric and nonparametric energy consumption forecasts for a developing country

This paper seeks to analyse and evaluate Sri Lanka's energy consumption forecasts, more specifically, electricity, petroleum, coal and renewable electricity consumption using a variety of parametric and nonparametric forecasting techniques. The Sri Lankan economy is emerging following the end of a prolonged civil war, and thus this topic is opportune as accurate forecasts of energy requirements are indispensable for sustaining the ongoing rapid economic expansion. We also consider evaluating the appropriateness of parametric and nonparametric energy forecasting methods for Sri Lanka. In addition, this paper marks the introductory application of SSA for forecasting in Sri Lanka, and the results from SSA are compared against the popular benchmarks of ARIMA, ETS, HW, TBATS, and NN. We find statistically significant evidence proving that the SSA model outperforms ETS and HW at forecasting renewable electricity consumption, and also, that the SSA model outperforms ARIMA and TBATS models at forecasting coal consumption. On average, the SSA model is found to be best for energy consumption forecasting in Sri Lanka whilst the Neural Networks model is second best.

The text of this article is restricted due to copyright issues. Please contact UAL Research Online to request a copy.