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Non-technical losses (NTL) have been a growing problem over the years, causing significant financial losses for electric utilities. Among the methods for detecting this type of loss, those based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) have been the most popular. Many works use the electricity consumption profile as an input for AI models, which may not be sufficient to develop a model that achieves a high detection rate for various types of energy fraud that may occur. In this paper, using actual electricity consumption data, additional statistical and temporal features based on these data are used to improve the detection rate of various types of NTL. Furthermore, a model that combines both the electricity consumption data and these features is developed, achieving a better detection rate for all types of fraud considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Reservoir computing is a framework for computation like a recurrent neural network that allows for the black box modeling of dynamical systems. In contrast to other recurrent neural network approaches, reservoir computing does not train the input and internal weights of the network, only the readout is trained. However it is necessary to adjust parameters to create a “good” reservoir for a given application. In this study we introduce a method, called RCDESIGN (reservoir computing and design training). RCDESIGN combines an evolutionary algorithm with reservoir computing and simultaneously looks for the best values of parameters, topology and weight matrices without rescaling the reservoir matrix by the spectral radius. The idea of adjust the spectral radius within the unit circle in the complex plane comes from the linear system theory. However, this argument does not necessarily apply to nonlinear systems, which is the case of reservoir computing. The results obtained with the proposed method are compared with results obtained by a genetic algorithm search for global parameters generation of reservoir computing. Four time series were used to validate RCDESIGN. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The large-scale integration into electrical systems of intermittent power-generation sources, such as wind power plants, requires greater efforts and knowledge from operators to keep these systems operating efficiently. These sources require reliable output power forecasts to set up the optimal operating point of the electrical system. In previous research, the authors developed an evolutionary approach algorithm called RCDESIGN to optimize the hyperparameters and topology of Echo State Networks (ESN), and applied the model in different time series forecasting, including wind speed. In this paper, RCDESIGN was modified in some aspects of the genetic algorithm, and now it optimizes an ESN with augmented states (ESN-AS) and has been called RCDESIGN-AS. The evolutionary algorithm allows the search for the best parameters and topology of the recurrent neural network to be performed simultaneously. In addition, RCDESIGN-AS has the important characteristic of requiring little computational effort and processing time since it is not necessary for the eigenvalues of the reservoir weight matrix to be reduced and also due to the fact that the augmented states make it possible to reduce the number of neurons in the reservoir. The method was applied for wind speed forecasting with a 24-h ahead horizon using real data of wind speed from five cities in the Northeast Region of Brazil. All results obtained with the proposed method overcame forecasting performed by the persistence method, obtaining prediction gains ranging from 60% to 80% in relation to this reference method. In some datasets, the proposed method also yielded better results than the traditional ESN, showing that RCDESIGN-AS can be a powerful tool for wind-speed forecasting and possibly for other types of time series. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biologically inspired controllers demonstrate great success in several applications, mainly in situations that present disturbances and uncertainties in the dynamics of the system. In recent times, several works have appeared in the area of emotional learning which occurs in the human brain, thus allowing to the emergence of new theories and applications in control engineering. In control engineering, it is possible to highlight the BELBIC (Brain Emotional Learning-Based Intelligent Controller). However, the design and commissioning of this type of controller still represents a major challenge for researchers, since it is necessary to determine some characteristic signals to this system (stimuli), which can vary from application to application. This work presents a methodology for the construction of architectures for BELBIC stimulus signals, using as a basis the DRL (Deep Reinforcement Learning) techniques. The DRL allows extracting characteristic patterns from the dynamics of systems which, perhaps, may have high dimensionality and possibly nonlinear dynamics, as is the case of most problems involving real-world dynamic systems. The resulting controller model is validated by applying an inverted pendulum dynamic system in order to demonstrate a new approach to the architectures of the BELBIC that allows to achieve a greater generalization in its application, as well as providing a viable alternative to the traditional models in use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Heat waves give rise to order of magnitude higher mortality rates than other weather-related natural disasters. Unfortunately both the severity and amplitude of heat waves are predicted to increase worldwide as a consequence of climate change. Hence, meteorological services have a growing need to identify such periods in order to set alerts, whilst researchers and industry need representative future heat waves to study risk. This paper introduces a new location-specific mortality risk focused definition of heat waves and a new mathematical framework for the creation of time series that represents them. It focuses on identifying periods when temperatures are high during the day and night, as this coincidence is strongly linked to mortality. The approach is tested using observed data from Brazil and the UK. Comparisons with previous methods demonstrate that this new approach represents a major advance that can be adopted worldwide by governments, researchers and industry. Highlight • A novel weather file for building assessment facing high temperature scenarios is proposed. • The method relies on KDD involving quantile regression ensemble and data integration. • It provides additional knowledge of inputs that affect temperature extremes. • The outcome is validated w.r.t. standards and is ready to use by industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article suggests the application of multiresolution analysis by Wavelet Transform—WT and Echo State Networks—ESN for the development of tools capable of providing wind speed and power generation forecasting. The models were developed to forecast the hourly mean wind speeds, which are applied to the wind turbine’s power curve to obtain wind power forecasts with horizons ranging from 1 to 24 h ahead, for three different locations of the Brazilian Northeast. The average improvement of Normalized Mean Absolute Error—NMAE for the first six, twelve, eighteen and twenty-four hourly power generation forecasts obtained by using the models proposed in this article were 70.87%, 71.99%, 67.77% and 58.52%, respectively. These results of improvements in relation to the Persistence Model—PM are among the best published results to date for wind power forecasting. The adopted methodology was adequate, assuring statistically reliable forecasts. When comparing the performance of fully-connected feedforward Artificial Neural Networks—ANN and ESN, it was observed that both are powerful time series forecasting tools, but the ESN proved to be more suited for wind power forecasting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]