Decision-focused linear pooling for probabilistic forecast combination
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Published version
Author(s)
Stratigakos, Akylas
Pineda, Salvador
Morales, Juan Miguel
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
In real-world settings, decision-makers often have access to multiple forecasts for the same unknown quantity. Combining different forecasts has long been known to improve forecast quality, as measured by scoring rules in the case of probabilistic forecasting. However, improved forecast quality does not always translate into better decisions in a downstream problem that utilizes the resultant combined forecast as input. To this end, this work proposes a novel probabilistic forecast combination approach that accounts for the downstream stochastic optimization problem by which the decisions will be made. We propose a linear pool of probabilistic forecasts where the respective weights are learned by minimizing the expected decision cost of the induced combination, which we formulate as a nested optimization problem. Two methods are proposed for its solution: a gradient-based method that utilizes differential optimization layers, and a performance-based weighting method. The proposed decision-focused combination approach is validated in two integral problems associated with renewable energy integration in low-carbon power systems and compared against well-established combination methods. Namely, we examine an electricity market trading problem under stochastic solar production and a grid scheduling problem under stochastic wind production. The results illustrate that the proposed approach leads to lower expected downstream costs, while optimizing for forecast quality when estimating linear pool weights does not always translate into better decisions. Notably, optimizing for a combination of downstream cost and an accuracy-oriented scoring rule consistently leads to better decisions while also improving forecast quality.
Date Issued
2025-07-01
Date Acceptance
2024-11-17
Citation
International Journal of Forecasting, 2025, 41 (3), pp.1112-1125
ISSN
0169-2070
Publisher
Elsevier
Start Page
1112
End Page
1125
Journal / Book Title
International Journal of Forecasting
Volume
41
Issue
3
Copyright Statement
© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of International Institute of Forecasters. This is an open access article under
the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
License URL
Identifier
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169207024001213
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2024-11-30