Modelling monthly electricity consumption

In Africa, in countries south of the Sahara, particularly Benin, the shortage of electrical energy has led to increasingly recurrent load shedding. The conventional method of projecting needs by growth currently used in generation, transmission and distribution companies is showing its limitations. Consumption patterns are difficult to quantify due to a number of factors: difficulties in supplying electricity, recurrent breakdowns of parts of the network, the price of fuel for generators, the economic crisis, and the under-instrumentation of electricity networks (lack of an hourly and daily consumption database). Four simulation models for medium-term electricity consumption in Benin are presented: a sinusoidal model, a seasonal model, a seasonal exponential model and a multivariate ARMAX (Auto Regressive Moving Average with External inputs) single-step forecasting model. The data used for this modelling covers the period 2001-2009.