1.15.1 background information Data 1 was prepared by the national electricity board of a far eastern country.

Electricity constitutes about 29 per cent of the total energy use in that country. Most of the countrys electricity is generated by public utulities. These utilities have the responsibility of promoting the generation of electrical energi which is imperative to the economic development of the n ation. Electricity generation in the country in the queston experienced a rapid growth during the past few decades. An average annual growth in electricity generation about 10.406 and 7.248 per cent were recorded for the periods of 1970-1980 and 1980-1984 respectively. Most of this expancion have been archived mainly through oil-fuelled thermal generating plants. Almost 87 per cent of the total electricity generation is oil based. In 1979, electricity generation alone consumed almost 75 per cent of the total fuel oil consumption in the country. The electricity demand for this utility is divided into five main sectors: industrial (IND), comercial (COM), domestic (DOM),public lighting(PL) and mining (MN). No attemp will be made to forecast mining load in this study. Demand in each sector is given in table 1.3, table 1.4 presents independent variables which will be used in the regression analysis. These variables are assumed to have some influence on the electricity demand. They are gross domestic product (GDP) in billion of dollars, population (POP) in millions, urban population (UPOP) in millons and number of households with electricity (NHE) in millions. Also used are the electrification ratio and urban ratio, when the elctrification ratio (ER) is defined as the percentage of number of households served by electricity divided by the total number of households, and the urban ratio (UR) is the percentage of the population in the urban areas divided by the total population.

1.15.2 forecasting process The analysis begins with the process of applying the trend curves and stepwise regression techniques to the data. The output that result form these two techniques is further amalgamated following the combination techniques discussed earlier, and the result produced are then recorded for comparison. Only eleven observations were avalable for the analysis; therefore applying the box-jenkins technique was not possible. In order to satisfy the three-point method, the first two observations have to be excluded from the estimating process. With the nine observation, the parameters for each type of the trend curves were computed. Using the stepwise regression procedure, demand within each sector was analysed and the model that best represented the data was developed. Producing the model that would represented the sectoral demand commenced with the correlation coefficient between variables. The study of the coefficients of industrial sales and independent variables showed that these variables were highly

correlated with one another. The stepwise regression routine derived a model for industrial demand as given by the relationship described by IND = -7667 + 944 POP (1.44)

The model passed all the required statistical tests and therefore accepted. Consequently, Eq.(1.44) was used to forecast future industrial demand. The parameters and result of the associated tests are summarized in table 1.5 Sales in the commersial sector also showed signs of high correlation with all of the independent variables. Using stepwise regression the model represented by the following equation was obtained: COM = -565 + 1771 NHE (1.45)

This model passed all but one test; it failed the shapiro-wilkes test. Subsequent efforts to introduce other variables failed. In order to find a more satisfactory model, the variables NHE was eliminated from the regression. A new model formulated by the following equation was produced: COM = -2134 + 71.7 GDP + 994 NH (1.46)

This model passed the I-test, shapiro-wilkes test and F-test, but failed the durbinwatson test. The minitab (statistical analysis computer package) regression routine used in the analysis identified the first observation as outlying data, which is sometimes referred to us an unusual observation, describes a data point that is signficantly different from the rest. When such a case occurs the data point in question may be excluded from the analysis. Deleting observation 1 and regressing gave COM = -3953 + 2372 NH (1.47)

The result of the calculations are given in table 1.6 the model passed all the test required and thus was used to forecast future commercial demand. The domesticsale showed a non-linear relationship with all the variables. Using the linear regression model without first transforming the dat gave the following equation: DOM = 631 -143 UR + 1697 UPOP 425 NH (1.48)

The coefficients of both the urban ratio (UR) and number of households (NH) were nwgative, which did not give any meaningful conclusions. The plot of the square root of domestic demand againts the variables urban ratio (UR), urban population (UPOP) and number of households (NH) gave an almost linera relationship. Further regression was done on all three variables with the square root (SQR) of the domestic sales, the final model produced was SQR-DOM = -17.7 + 13.4 UPOP (1.49)

The model passed all the tests and therefore was used to forecast the value of domestic sales in the future years. Table 1.7 presents te results of the calculations for the sales in this sector. Repeating the same regression procedure on the public lighting load gave the following result: PL = 3.99 + 4.16 GDP 0.692 ER (1.50)

The t-statistics showed that all variables have significant coefficient values. Further studies on the relationship between variables showed that the relationship between the sales and the other variables are not-linear. Transforming the variables and regressing gave LPL = 1.62 + 1.53 LGDP 0.575 LER (1.51)

With LPL as the natural logarithm of public lighting, LGDP as the natural logarithm of gross domestic product an LER as the natural logarithm of the electrification ratio. The model failed the durbin-watson test. Again the minitab output noted the presence of an outlier and this time it highlighted observation 6. Deleting this observation and regressing prodused the following model : LPL = 1.36 + 1.45 LGDP 0.446 LER (1.52)

The model passed all the required statistical tests, and was thus accepted to represent the demand in the public lighting sector. The result of the calculations are presented in table 1.8. The next stage involves investigation of the usefulness of combining forecasts by employing the five methods described. The objective of this operation is to determine whether combining could produce a forecast that is superior to the individual forecasts. All of the forecasts were firsts combined together (see section .1.1), using the equal weighting (weighting 1)with v = 2,3, and 6, eighting procedure 2 and weighting procedur e 3 with y =1.00, 1.50, and 2.00, and the odds-matrix combination techniques. Utility 1 is supplying electricity an a developing country. Assume that the demand follows the modified exponential curve, rather than the gompertz or logistic curve. The next step will be the combine the modified exponential with the stepwise regression. The same routine was repeated, and the result drawn. Table 1.9 to 1.12 summarize the performance of each forecasting technique when applied to electricity demand in the industrial, commercial, domestic, and public lighting sectors respectively. Model 5 to 9 were the result of combining the modified exponential, gompertz, logistic and stepwise techniques. Model 10 to 14 exhibit the outcome of amalgamating the modified expoential and stepwise only. Figure 1.2 to 1.5 trace the sectoral demand predicted using models 1 to 4. Figures 1.6 to 1.9 indicate future demand projections by model 5 to 9, while figures 1.10 to 1.13 show demand in the future as forecast by mode 10 to 14.