This paper uses minute-by-minute British electricity demand observations to evaluate methods for prediction between 10 and 30Â minutes ahead. Such very short lead times are important for the real-time scheduling of electricity generation. We consider methods designed to capture both the...

Information criteria (IC) are often used to decide between forecasting models. Commonly used criteria include Akaike's IC and Schwarz's Bayesian IC. They involve the sum of two terms: the model's log likelihood and a penalty for the number of model parameters. The likelihood is calculated with...

We propose exponentially weighted quantile regression (EWQR) for estimating time-varying quantiles. The EWQR cost function can be used as the basis for estimating the time-varying expected shortfall associated with the EWQR quantile forecast. We express EWQR in a kernel estimation framework, and...

Expectile models are derived using asymmetric least squares. A simple formula relates the expectile to the expectation of exceedances beyond the expectile. We use this as the basis for estimating expected shortfall. It has been proposed that the quantile be estimated by the expectile for which...

Predictions of call center arrivals are a key input to staff scheduling models. It is, therefore, surprising that simplistic forecasting methods dominate practice, and that the research literature on forecasting arrivals is so small. In this paper, we evaluate univariate time series methods for...

This paper uses intraday electricity demand data from 10 European countries as the basis of an empirical comparison of univariate methods for prediction up to a day-ahead. A notable feature of the time series is the presence of both an intraweek and an intraday seasonal cycle. The forecasting...

Inventory control systems typically require the frequent updating of forecasts for many different products. In addition to point predictions, interval forecasts are needed to set appropriate levels of safety stock. The series considered in this paper are characterised by high volatility and...

The transmitters of electricity in Great Britain are responsible for balancing generation and consumption. Although this can be done in the hour between closure of the market and real-time, off-loading or calling-up electricity at this late stage can be costly. Costs can be substantially reduced...

Weather derivatives enable energy companies to protect themselves against weather risk. Weather ensemble predictions are generated from atmospheric models and consist of multiple future scenarios for a weather variable. They can be used to forecast the density of the payoff from a weather...

This empirical paper compares the accuracy of six univariate methods for short-term electricity demand forecasting for lead times up to a day ahead. The very short lead times are of particular interest as univariate methods are often replaced by multivariate methods for prediction beyond about...