Forecasting China’s Natural Gas Consumption Based on AdaBoost-Particle Swarm Optimization-Extreme Learning Machine Integrated Learning Method

Abstract

With the orderly advancement of ‘China’s energy development strategic action plan’, the natural gas industry has achieved unprecedented development. Currently, it is planned that by 2020, China’s natural gas consumption will account for at least 10% of the total primary energy consumption, have an orderly and improved energy structure, and achieved energy-saving and emission-reduction targets. Therefore, the accurate prediction of natural gas consumption becomes significantly important. Firstly, based on the research status of forecasting methods and the factors which affect natural gas consumption, this paper used the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to obtain the input layer weight, and used the optimized extreme learning machine (ELM) algorithm to obtain the hidden layer threshold; by using PSO-ELM as the base predictor and the AdaBoost algorithm, we have constructed the natural gas consumption integrated learning prediction model. Secondly, from the perspective of different provinces and industries, we deeply analyze the current status of natural gas consumption, and the random forest algorithm is used to extract the core influencing factors of natural gas consumption as the independent variables of the prediction model. Finally, data on China’s natural gas consumption from 1995 to 2017 are selected, then the feasibility analysis and comparative analysis with other methods are performed. The results show: 1) Using the random forest algorithm to extract the core influencing factors, economic growth, population, household consumption and import dependence degree are significantly representative. 2) Based on the AdaBoost integrated learning algorithm, transforming the weak predictor with poor prediction effect into a strong predictor with strong prediction effect, compared with PSO-ELM, AdaBoost-ELM and ELM algorithm, with R-Square as 0.9999, Mean Square Error (MSE) as 0.8435, Mean Absolute Error (MAE) as 0.2379, Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) as 0.0008, effectively validated the significant effect of the AdaBoost-PSO-ELM prediction model. 3) Based on the AdaBoost-PSO-ELM prediction model, predict the natural gas core influencing factors and natural gas consumption in the year of 2018–2030. There is an apparent growth trend in the next 13 years, and the average growth rate of natural gas consumption has reached 7.68%.