A short-term load forecasting method for distribution networks based on multivariate information and exploratory factor analysis

Accurate short-term load forecasting of distribution networks can ensure the normal life and production of the society, effectively reduce the cost of power generation, and improve the economic and social benefits. Aiming at the multivariate information that affects the power load, this paper utilizes factor analysis to reduce the dimensionality of the original influencing factors, and obtains the main influencing factors with the highest contribution rate, so as to guarantee the accuracy of the neural network prediction. On this basis, the neural network structure is improved by combining AlexNet and GRU, and the short-term load prediction model of distribution network is finally constructed. The relevant charge data of N village in 2023-2024 is used as a research sample to analyze the main influencing factors of its short-term load change, and three main influencing factors affecting the load change in the short term are identified as temperature, air pressure, and humidity factor. Based on the real data of N-village distribution network to carry out prediction simulation experiments, the load short-term prediction curve of this paper’s model has a better fitting degree and good stability, and the values of the prediction result evaluation indexes MRE, RMSE and MAE are smaller than those of the other comparative models, which are basically able to maintain a prediction accuracy of more than 90%.