Forecasting the Italian Wholesale Electricity Price Using Artificial Intelligence Models

Abstract

Electricity price forecasting has become a crucial element for both private and public decision-making. This importance has been growing since the wave of deregulation and liberalization of energy sector worldwide late 1990s. Given these facts, this paper tries to come up with a precise and flexible forecasting model for the wholesale electricity price at the Italian market on an hourly basis. We utilize artificial intelligence models such as neural networks and bagged regression trees that are rarely used to forecast electricity prices. After model calibration, our final model is bagged regression trees with exogenous variables. The selected model outperformed neural network and bagged regression with single price used in this paper, it also outperformed other statistical and non-statistical models used in other studies. As a policy implication, this model might be used by energy traders, transmission system operators and energy regulators for an enhanced decision-making process.

Keywords: PUN, artificial intelligence models, regression tree, bootstrap aggregation, forecasting error

JEL Classification: C14, C45, C53, Q47