TF-EffBiGRU-AttNet: A Novel Deep Learning Framework for Spatio-Temporal Energy Demand Forecasting in Electric Vehicle Charging Networks

Abstract

Electric Vehicle Charging Stations (EVCS) are key enablers of sustainable transportation, yet accurate forecasting of their energy demand remains challenging due to complex spatial-temporal variability. This study introduces a novel hybrid deep learning framework, Two-Fold EfficientNetV2 BiGRU with Attention (TF-EffBiGRU-AttNet), optimized using the Self-Adaptive Hippopotamus Optimization Algorithm (SA-HOA), to enhance prediction accuracy and computational efficiency in EVCS energy demand forecasting. The main objective is to integrate multi-scale spatial learning, bidirectional temporal modeling, and adaptive feature prioritization within a single architecture capable of robust and interpretable forecasting. The model’s novelty lies in its dual-fold spatial feature extraction using EfficientNetV2 and dynamic optimization through SA-HOA, which adaptively balances exploration and exploitation during training. Experimental validation on two real-world datasets from Palo Alto and Perth demonstrates that the proposed model consistently outperforms state-of-the-art baselines. For the 7-1 forecasting task, TF-EffBiGRU-AttNet achieved the lowest MAE of 0.012 and RMSE of 0.051 for Palo Alto, and MAE of 0.029 with RMSE of 0.12 for Perth. For the 30-7 task, it achieved MAE of 0.0332, RMSE of 0.1654, and MAPE of 0.20% on Palo Alto, and MAE of 0.0235, RMSE of 0.0824, and MAPE of 0.37% on Perth, outperforming Bi-LSTM and EfficientNet by over 60% in RMSE reduction. Moreover, SA-HOA improved optimization efficiency with a best fitness value of 0.0003 and reduced convergence time to 1.2 seconds, surpassing PSO, GWO, and HOA. These results highlight the framework’s ability to capture spatial-seasonal and nonlinear dependencies while maintaining low computational overhead. The findings confirm the model’s potential as a robust, adaptive, and scalable solution for intelligent EV energy demand forecasting, supporting smart grid planning and sustainable energy management.