Primary energy sources planning based on demand forecasting: The case of Turkey

Forecasting electricity consumption is a very important issue for governments and electricity related foundations of public sector. Recently, Grey Modelling (GM (1,1)) has been used to forecast electricity demand successfully. GM (1,1) is useful when the observed data is limited, and it does not require any preliminary information about the data distribution. However, the original form of GM (1,1) needs some improvements in order to use for time series, which exhibit seasonality. In this study, a grey forecasting model which is called SGM (1,1) is proposed to give the forecasting ability to the basic form of GM(1,1) in order to overcome seasonality issues. The proposed model is then used to forecast the monthly electricity demand of Turkey between 2015 and 2020. Obtained forecasting values were used to plan the primary energy sources of electricity production. The findings of the study may guide the planning of future plant investments and maintenance operations in Turkey. Moreover, the method can also be applied to predict seasonal electricity demand of any other country.