Introduction

Electricity is the only commodity that is produced and consumed simultaneously; therefore, a perfect balance between supply and consumption in the electricity power market must always be maintained. Forecasting electricity consumption is of national interest to any country since electricity is a key source of energy. A reliable forecast of energy consumption, production, and distribution meets the stable and long-term policy. The presence of economies of scale, focus on environmental concerns, regulatory requirements, and a favorable public image, coupled with inflation, rapidly rising energy prices, the emergence of alternative fuels and technologies, changes in life styles, and so on, has generated the need to use modeling techniques which capture the effect of factors such as prices, income, population, technology, and other economic, demographic, policy, and technological variables.

Underestimation could lead to under-capacity utilization, which would result in poor quality...