Forecasting China’s Annual Biofuel Production Using an Improved Grey Model

Nana Geng, Yong Zhang, Yixiang Sun, Yunjian Jiang and Dandan Chen
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Nana Geng: School of Transportation, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, Jiangsu, China
Yong Zhang: School of Transportation, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, Jiangsu, China
Yixiang Sun: School of Civil Aviation, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 211106, Jiangsu, China
Yunjian Jiang: School of Transportation, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, Jiangsu, China
Dandan Chen: School of Transportation, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, Jiangsu, China

Energies, 2015, vol. 8, issue 10, 1-20

Abstract: Biofuel production in China suffers from many uncertainties due to concerns about the government’s support policy and supply of biofuel raw material. Predicting biofuel production is critical to the development of this energy industry. Depending on the biofuel’s characteristics, we improve the prediction precision of the conventional prediction method by creating a dynamic fuzzy grey–Markov prediction model. Our model divides random time series decomposition into a change trend sequence and a fluctuation sequence. It comprises two improvements. We overcome the problem of considering the status of future time from a static angle in the traditional grey model by using the grey equal dimension new information and equal dimension increasing models to create a dynamic grey prediction model. To resolve the influence of random fluctuation data and weak anti-interference ability in the Markov chain model, we improve the traditional grey–Markov model with classification of states using the fuzzy set theory. Finally, we use real data to test the dynamic fuzzy prediction model. The results prove that the model can effectively improve the accuracy of forecast data and can be applied to predict biofuel production. However, there are still some defects in our model. The modeling approach used here predicts biofuel production levels based upon past production levels dictated by economics, governmental policies, and technological developments but none of which can be forecast accurately based upon past events.

Keywords: grey model; Markov model; fuzzy set theory; combination forecast; biofuel production (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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