IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v383y2025ics0306261924025856.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Simplicity in dynamic and competitive electricity markets: A case study on enhanced linear models versus complex deep-learning models for day-ahead electricity price forecasting

Author

Listed:
  • Mao, Xuehui
  • Chen, Shanlin
  • Yu, Hanxin
  • Duan, Liwu
  • He, Yingjie
  • Chu, Yinghao

Abstract

In the transitioning electricity market of China, accurate forecasting of Day-Ahead Electricity Prices (DAEP) is crucial for strategic planning and profit optimization of market participants. It plays a significant role in resource allocation and in enhancing the efficiency of the energy system. DAEP forecasting in complex electricity markets is challenging due to a multitude of factors, including end-user consumption patterns and physical elements like network losses and transmission congestion. Furthermore, DAEP bidding strategies are often entwined with strategic gaming behavior. Motivated by this, we introduce a novel enhanced linear framework designed to optimize the trade-off between preserving historical patterns (the memory function) and extending predictions to new situations (the generalization function) in DAEP forecasting. The framework employs a linear network to capture data trends and Multi-Layer Perceptron networks for the robust extraction of intricate features and generalization. The proposed enhanced linear framework is developed and evaluated using real-world data from 3 geographically distinct power plants in Guangdong, the province with the highest economic scale and electricity consumption in China. Our approach outperforms representative deep-learning methods, including the Long Short-Term Memory model and Transformer models, with improvements of RMSE up to 26.64% and 51.80%, respectively. Additionally, the results reveal that complex models do not always outperform more straightforward ones in real-world markets characterized by extensive interaction and competition. This indicates the proposed framework provides a straightforward but effective method for time-series DAEP forecasting within the competitive electricity markets. Accurate DAEP forecasting can enhance grid security, facilitate optimal resource allocation, and promote the integration of green and low-carbon power sources into the urban energy system.

Suggested Citation

  • Mao, Xuehui & Chen, Shanlin & Yu, Hanxin & Duan, Liwu & He, Yingjie & Chu, Yinghao, 2025. "Simplicity in dynamic and competitive electricity markets: A case study on enhanced linear models versus complex deep-learning models for day-ahead electricity price forecasting," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 383(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:383:y:2025:i:c:s0306261924025856
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2024.125201
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261924025856
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.apenergy.2024.125201?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chang, Zihan & Zhang, Yang & Chen, Wenbo, 2019. "Electricity price prediction based on hybrid model of adam optimized LSTM neural network and wavelet transform," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    2. Panapakidis, Ioannis P. & Dagoumas, Athanasios S., 2016. "Day-ahead electricity price forecasting via the application of artificial neural network based models," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 132-151.
    3. Nesreen Ahmed & Amir Atiya & Neamat El Gayar & Hisham El-Shishiny, 2010. "An Empirical Comparison of Machine Learning Models for Time Series Forecasting," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(5-6), pages 594-621.
    4. Tschora, Léonard & Pierre, Erwan & Plantevit, Marc & Robardet, Céline, 2022. "Electricity price forecasting on the day-ahead market using machine learning," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 313(C).
    5. Tan, Zhongfu & Zhang, Jinliang & Wang, Jianhui & Xu, Jun, 2010. "Day-ahead electricity price forecasting using wavelet transform combined with ARIMA and GARCH models," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 87(11), pages 3606-3610, November.
    6. Lago, Jesus & De Ridder, Fjo & Vrancx, Peter & De Schutter, Bart, 2018. "Forecasting day-ahead electricity prices in Europe: The importance of considering market integration," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 890-903.
    7. Lago, Jesus & Marcjasz, Grzegorz & De Schutter, Bart & Weron, Rafał, 2021. "Forecasting day-ahead electricity prices: A review of state-of-the-art algorithms, best practices and an open-access benchmark," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).
    8. Lim, Bryan & Arık, Sercan Ö. & Loeff, Nicolas & Pfister, Tomas, 2021. "Temporal Fusion Transformers for interpretable multi-horizon time series forecasting," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1748-1764.
    9. In, YeonJun & Jung, Jae-Yoon, 2022. "Simple averaging of direct and recursive forecasts via partial pooling using machine learning," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1386-1399.
    10. Zhang, Xiaobo & Wang, Jianzhou & Gao, Yuyang, 2019. "A hybrid short-term electricity price forecasting framework: Cuckoo search-based feature selection with singular spectrum analysis and SVM," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 899-913.
    11. Hewamalage, Hansika & Bergmeir, Christoph & Bandara, Kasun, 2021. "Recurrent Neural Networks for Time Series Forecasting: Current status and future directions," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 388-427.
    12. Léonard Tschora & Erwan Pierre & Marc Plantevit & Céline Robardet, 2022. "Electricity price forecasting on the day-ahead market using machine learning," Post-Print hal-03621974, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chai, Shanglei & Li, Qiang & Abedin, Mohammad Zoynul & Lucey, Brian M., 2024. "Forecasting electricity prices from the state-of-the-art modeling technology and the price determinant perspectives," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(PA).
    2. Aliyon, Kasra & Ritvanen, Jouni, 2024. "Deep learning-based electricity price forecasting: Findings on price predictability and European electricity markets," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 308(C).
    3. Ciaran O’Connor & Mohamed Bahloul & Steven Prestwich & Andrea Visentin, 2025. "A Review of Electricity Price Forecasting Models in the Day-Ahead, Intra-Day, and Balancing Markets," Energies, MDPI, vol. 18(12), pages 1-40, June.
    4. Deniz Kenan Kılıç & Peter Nielsen & Amila Thibbotuwawa, 2024. "Intraday Electricity Price Forecasting via LSTM and Trading Strategy for the Power Market: A Case Study of the West Denmark DK1 Grid Region," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(12), pages 1-15, June.
    5. Huang, Siwan & Shi, Jianheng & Wang, Baoyue & An, Na & Li, Li & Hou, Xuebing & Wang, Chunsen & Zhang, Xiandong & Wang, Kai & Li, Huilin & Zhang, Sui & Zhong, Ming, 2024. "A hybrid framework for day-ahead electricity spot-price forecasting: A case study in China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 373(C).
    6. Fang Guo & Shangyun Deng & Weijia Zheng & An Wen & Jinfeng Du & Guangshan Huang & Ruiyang Wang, 2022. "Short-Term Electricity Price Forecasting Based on the Two-Layer VMD Decomposition Technique and SSA-LSTM," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(22), pages 1-20, November.
    7. Madadkhani, Shiva & Ikonnikova, Svetlana, 2024. "Toward high-resolution projection of electricity prices: A machine learning approach to quantifying the effects of high fuel and CO2 prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    8. Gabrielli, Paolo & Wüthrich, Moritz & Blume, Steffen & Sansavini, Giovanni, 2022. "Data-driven modeling for long-term electricity price forecasting," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 244(PB).
    9. Loizidis, Stylianos & Kyprianou, Andreas & Georghiou, George E., 2024. "Electricity market price forecasting using ELM and Bootstrap analysis: A case study of the German and Finnish Day-Ahead markets," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 363(C).
    10. Mira Watermeyer & Thomas Mobius & Oliver Grothe & Felix Musgens, 2023. "A hybrid model for day-ahead electricity price forecasting: Combining fundamental and stochastic modelling," Papers 2304.09336, arXiv.org.
    11. Karol Pilot & Alicja Ganczarek-Gamrot & Krzysztof Kania, 2024. "Dealing with Anomalies in Day-Ahead Market Prediction Using Machine Learning Hybrid Model," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(17), pages 1-20, September.
    12. Chibuike Chiedozie Ibebuchi, 2025. "Day-Ahead Energy Price Forecasting with Machine Learning: Role of Endogenous Predictors," Forecasting, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-16, April.
    13. Daniel Manfre Jaimes & Manuel Zamudio López & Hamidreza Zareipour & Mike Quashie, 2023. "A Hybrid Model for Multi-Day-Ahead Electricity Price Forecasting considering Price Spikes," Forecasting, MDPI, vol. 5(3), pages 1-23, July.
    14. Hasnain Iftikhar & Josue E. Turpo-Chaparro & Paulo Canas Rodrigues & Javier Linkolk López-Gonzales, 2023. "Forecasting Day-Ahead Electricity Prices for the Italian Electricity Market Using a New Decomposition—Combination Technique," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(18), pages 1-23, September.
    15. Yang, Haolin & Schell, Kristen R., 2022. "GHTnet: Tri-Branch deep learning network for real-time electricity price forecasting," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 238(PC).
    16. Hilger, Hannes & Witthaut, Dirk & Dahmen, Manuel & Rydin Gorjão, Leonardo & Trebbien, Julius & Cramer, Eike, 2024. "Multivariate scenario generation of day-ahead electricity prices using normalizing flows," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 367(C).
    17. Sheybanivaziri, Samaneh & Le Dréau, Jérôme & Kazmi, Hussain, 2024. "Forecasting price spikes in day-ahead electricity markets: techniques, challenges, and the road ahead," Discussion Papers 2024/1, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    18. van Zyl, Corne & Ye, Xianming & Naidoo, Raj, 2024. "Harnessing eXplainable artificial intelligence for feature selection in time series energy forecasting: A comparative analysis of Grad-CAM and SHAP," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 353(PA).
    19. Li, Wei & Becker, Denis Mike, 2021. "Day-ahead electricity price prediction applying hybrid models of LSTM-based deep learning methods and feature selection algorithms under consideration of market coupling," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 237(C).
    20. Sai, Wei & Pan, Zehua & Liu, Siyu & Jiao, Zhenjun & Zhong, Zheng & Miao, Bin & Chan, Siew Hwa, 2023. "Event-driven forecasting of wholesale electricity price and frequency regulation price using machine learning algorithms," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 352(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:383:y:2025:i:c:s0306261924025856. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.