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Application of the three-parameter discrete direct grey model to forecast China’s natural gas consumption

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Abstract

Accurate forecast of natural gas consumption is of significance for policy makers to formulate energy plans, save costs and improve energy structure. This study designs a novel three-parameter discrete direct grey model denoted as TDDGM, which overcomes existing modeling drawbacks about the accumulating generation for monotonous series. Moreover, the optimal initial condition of the proposed model is deduced by the ordinary least square method and the final recursive function is derived. Error checking method of TDDGM and five different numerical cases are introduced to verify the superiority and effectiveness of the new approach. The results show that TDDGM performs better than other several benchmark models in multiple tests. Finally, it is utilized to forecast China’s natural gas consumption and the predicted results will maintain a steady upward trend, reaching 322.06 billion cubic meters in 2022. The research results have positive significance for enriching grey system theory and improving energy structure in China.

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Data availability

All data analyzed during this study are included in this article. The authors declare that data in this study will be made available on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the anonymous referees for their valuable and constructive comments on this article.

Funding

This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (72071023; 71771033) and Scientific and Technology Research Project of Chongqing Education Commission (KJZD-K202000804; KJZD-K20220210).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Business Administration, Huaqiao University, Quanzhou, 362021, China

    Wenhao Zhou & Hailin Li

  2. School of Management Science and Engineering, Chongqing Technology and Business University, Chongqing, 400067, China

    Bo Zeng

  3. Chongqing United Assets and Equity Exchange Group, Chongqing, 404100, China

    You Wu

  4. School of Statistics, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, Liaoning, 116025, China

    Jianzhou Wang

  5. College of Business Administration, Capital University of Economics and Business, Beijing, 100070, China

    Zhiwei Zhang

Authors
  1. Wenhao Zhou
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  2. Bo Zeng
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  3. You Wu
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  4. Jianzhou Wang
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  5. Hailin Li
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. The first draft of the manuscript was written by W Zhou. Formal analysis and validation were performed by B Zeng. Material preparation and data collection were performed by Y Wu, J Wang, H Li and Z Zhang. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Bo Zeng.

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Zhou, W., Zeng, B., Wu, Y. et al. Application of the three-parameter discrete direct grey model to forecast China’s natural gas consumption. Soft Comput 27, 3213–3228 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00500-022-07523-9

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