Hort-term forecasting of the parameters of natural gas consumption as an element of price-dependent management of energy costs in industrial enterprises

Natural gas is one of the most used energy resources in the world. The authors propose the method for reducing the costs of natural gas procurement, which consists in the use of a tool for managing the demand for natural gas consumption by industrial enterprises. The article contains the authors’ description of the mechanism for reducing the costs of natural gas procurement at the level of the UGSS of Russia through the application of the demand management mechanism. Based on the characteristics of the technological and market environment, the authors develop a model for price-dependent management of natural gas consumption in an industrial enterprise, with the definition of key model blocks and the sequence of functions performed. The key element of the developed model of price-dependent management is the unit for fulfilling the forecast of natural gas consumption. The article analyzes the characteristics of the graphs of natural gas consumption by various types of industrial enterprises at different periods. The authors reveal a list of factors affecting the characteristics of natural gas consumption schedules by industrial enterprises. The influence of the identified types of factors on gas consumption in various industries has been assessed. Based on the revealed features, the authors developed a model for forecasting short-term demand parameters for gas consumption by industrial enterprises, based on using a combined forecasting method that combines the use of statistical methods and the method of expert assessments. The developed combined model for forecasting the parameters of natural gas consumption makes it possible to significantly improve the accuracy of forecasts by breaking up the consumption schedule by the types of gas use, taking into account the specifics and the level of influence of factors within each direction of consumption, and using the most suitable methods for each group of prediction methods. The practical importance of the developed model lies in the possibility of its use for forecasting the parameters of natural gas consumption by any types of industrial enterprises in the context of price-dependent energy management in order to minimize them.