In this paper we present a new approach for time series forecasting, called Maximum Length Weighted Nearest Neighbor (MLWNN), which combines prediction based on sequence similarity with optimization techniques. MLWNN predicts the 24 hourly electricity loads for the next day, from a time sequence of previously electricity loads up to the current day. We evaluate MLWNN using electricity load data for two years, for three countries (Australia, Portugal and Spain), and compare its performance with

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... hree state-of-the-art methods (weighted nearest neighbor, pattern sequence-based forecasting and iterative neural network) and with two baselines. The results show that MLWNN is a promising approach for one day ahead electricity load forecasting.