An integrated fuzzy regression–analysis of variance algorithm for improvement of electricity consumption estimation in uncertain environments

Abstract

This study presents an integrated fuzzy regression analysis of variance (ANOVA) algorithm to estimate andpredict electricity consumption in uncertain environment. The proposed algorithm is composed of 16 fuzzy regression models. This is because there is no clear cut as to which of the recent fuzzy regression model is suitable for a given set of actual data with respect to electricity consumption. Furthermore, it is difficult to model uncertain behavior of electricity consumption with conventional time series and proper fuzzy regression could be an ideal substitute for such cases. The algorithm selects the best model by mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), index of confidence (IC), distance measure, and ANOVA for electricity estimation and prediction. Monthly electricity consumption of Iran from 1992 to 2004 is considered to show the applicability and superiority of the proposed algorithm. The unique features of this study are threefold. The proposed algorithm selects the best fuzzy regression model for a given set of uncertain data by standard andproven methods. The selection process is based on MAPE, IC, distance to ideal point, and ANOVA. In contrast to previous studies, this study presents an integrated approach because it considers the most important fuzzy regression approaches, MAPE, IC, distance measure, and ANOVA for selection of the preferred model for the given data. Moreover, it always guarantees the preferred solution through its integrated mechanism.