A Hybrid Model Combining Signal Decomposition and Inverted Transformer for Accurate Power Transformer Load Prediction

Transformer load is a key factor influencing its aging and service life. Accurately predicting load trends is crucial for assisting load redistribution. This study proposes a hybrid model called RIME-VMD-TCN-iTransformer to forecast the trend of transformer load. In this model, RIME (Randomized Improved Marine Predators Algorithm) is employed to enhance decomposition stability, VMD (Variational Mode Decomposition) is used to address the non-stationary characteristics of the load sequence, TCN (Temporal Convolutional Network) extracts local temporal dependencies, and iTransformer (Inverted Transformer) captures global inter-variable correlations. First, the variational mode decomposition algorithm is applied to mitigate the non-stationary characteristics of the signal, followed by the RIME to further enhance the orderliness of the intrinsic mode functions. Subsequently, the TCN-iTransformer model is utilized to predict each intrinsic mode function individually, and the prediction results of all intrinsic mode functions are reconstructed to obtain the final forecast. The findings indicate that the intrinsic mode functions obtained through RIME-VMD exhibit no spectral aliasing and can decompose abrupt time-series signals into stable and regular frequency components. Compared to other hybrid models, the proposed model demonstrates superior responsiveness to changes in time-series trends and achieves the lowest prediction error across various transformer capacity scenarios. These results highlight the model’s superior accuracy and generalization capability in handling abrupt signals, underscoring its potential for preventing unexpected transformer events.