An Online-Calibrated Time Series Based Model for Day-Ahead Natural Gas Demand Forecasting

This paper proposes a new online-calibrated time series based model with the application to the day-ahead natural gas demand (GD) forecasting. A double-stage parallel process is developed for creating the forecasting model. The two stages include analysis of the temperature-independent and temperature-dependent components of the GD. The former stage is executed by online processing of the historical GD information considering the intertemporal variation of the GD. The latter stage, however, is conducted by exploiting the features of the GD information correlated with the ambient temperature. The forecast of the temperature is incorporated into the GD forecasting model through a correlation-based function. The model can generate the day-ahead GD forecast with both the hourly and intrahourly resolutions without compromising the forecast accuracy. The model is calibrated online using the historical GD and temperature information to achieve a higher forecast accuracy. The practical challenges associated with the industrial application of the model are also discussed. The application of the proposed model is numerically examined using real-world GD and temperature data, and the results are comprehensively studied. The outcomes reveal the efficacy and feasibility of the proposed model under various cases.