Probabilistic Time Series Forecasting of Residential Loads – A Copula Approach

Predicting the time series of future evolutions of renewable injections and demands is of utmost importance for the operation of power systems. However, the current state of the art is mostly focused on mean-value time series predictions and only very few methods provide probabilistic forecasts. In this paper, we rely on kernel density estimation and vine copulas to construct probabilistic models for individual load profiles of private households. Our approach allows the quantification of variability of individual energy consumption in general and of daily peak loads in particular. We draw upon an Australian distribution grid dataset to illustrate our findings. We generate synthetic loads that follow the distribution of the real data.