Robust Probabilistic Load Forecasting for a Single Household: A Comparative Study from SARIMA to Transformers on the REFIT Dataset

Fuente: arXiv
Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
1. Verfasser: Manoj, Midhun
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
_version_ 1866915645607641088
author Manoj, Midhun
author_facet Manoj, Midhun
contents Probabilistic forecasting is essential for modern risk management, allowing decision-makers to quantify uncertainty in critical systems. This paper tackles this challenge using the volatile REFIT household dataset, which is complicated by a large structural data gap. We first address this by conducting a rigorous comparative experiment to select a Seasonal Imputation method, demonstrating its superiority over linear interpolation in preserving the data's underlying distribution. We then systematically evaluate a hierarchy of models, progressing from classical baselines (SARIMA, Prophet) to machine learning (XGBoost) and advanced deep learning architectures (LSTM). Our findings reveal that classical models fail to capture the data's non-linear, regime-switching behavior. While the LSTM provided the most well-calibrated probabilistic forecast, the Temporal Fusion Transformer (TFT) emerged as the superior all-round model, achieving the best point forecast accuracy (RMSE 481.94) and producing safer, more cautious prediction intervals that effectively capture extreme volatility.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_00856
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Robust Probabilistic Load Forecasting for a Single Household: A Comparative Study from SARIMA to Transformers on the REFIT Dataset
Manoj, Midhun
Machine Learning
62M10, 68T07, 62P30
I.2.6; I.5.1; G.3
Probabilistic forecasting is essential for modern risk management, allowing decision-makers to quantify uncertainty in critical systems. This paper tackles this challenge using the volatile REFIT household dataset, which is complicated by a large structural data gap. We first address this by conducting a rigorous comparative experiment to select a Seasonal Imputation method, demonstrating its superiority over linear interpolation in preserving the data's underlying distribution. We then systematically evaluate a hierarchy of models, progressing from classical baselines (SARIMA, Prophet) to machine learning (XGBoost) and advanced deep learning architectures (LSTM). Our findings reveal that classical models fail to capture the data's non-linear, regime-switching behavior. While the LSTM provided the most well-calibrated probabilistic forecast, the Temporal Fusion Transformer (TFT) emerged as the superior all-round model, achieving the best point forecast accuracy (RMSE 481.94) and producing safer, more cautious prediction intervals that effectively capture extreme volatility.
title Robust Probabilistic Load Forecasting for a Single Household: A Comparative Study from SARIMA to Transformers on the REFIT Dataset
topic Machine Learning
62M10, 68T07, 62P30
I.2.6; I.5.1; G.3
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.00856