Abstract: City gas load is often closely related to such factors as city′s industry development and the population. However, the traditional city gas load GM(1,1) prediction model only has something to do with historical data, the prediction results can not truly reflect the changing tendency of gas load in the future. The Grey GM(1,N) model is used to establish the GM(1,3) model with three variables in one rank by bringing the two factors, industrial output value and population, into the gas load prediction model. The calculated results of actual examples indicate that this model can make accurate prediction of city gas load. Furthermore, the main factors that influence gas load have been taken into consideration in the model, which makes the prediction model and its results more reasonable.

Key words: city gas, load prediction, grey theory, GM（1, N）model