Investigation of Electric Load Forecasting Methods Through Spatial Demand Forecasting and ARIMA for Isolated Islands in Indonesia

Indonesia has 17,503 islands, with most being isolated islands, causing limited access to electricity supplies. As a tangible action to address the issue, the Central Government has implemented the LTSHE program. PLN is mandated to replace the program after a maximum installation period of three years. PLN is currently developing methods that can be employed to electrify regions in isolated islands. Electrical system planning can commence with load forecasting to assist in determining the required power plant capacity. In forecasting electrical load on limited isolated islands, the use of spatial methods is proposed. The advantage of this method lies in considering the direction of spatial development patterns in a region in accordance with local regulations. The direction of the load projection results will be compared with the ARIMA method. Significant differences are evident in the presentation of load projection results, where the Spatial Demand Forecasting method uses a 90% confidence level in the form of a range. In contrast, the ARIMA method has a MAPE of 2.953% in the form of a single number. The findings from this comparative are crucial for evaluating trade-offs in electrical system planning when selecting a relevant electric load projection method for isolated islands.