The large-scale integration of variable renewable energy sources introduces critical challenges of intermittency and uncertainty, yet consumption forecasting, generation forecasting, and anomaly detection are typically addressed in isolation, neglecting the bidirectional feedback between consumption patterns, generation mix, and public decision-making. This PRISMA 2020-compliant systematic review compared statistical, machine learning, and deep learning models for energy forecasting and machine learning and deep learning models for anomaly detection. Searches in Google Scholar and Scopus used seven targeted strings, restricted to peer-reviewed empirical studies (2022–2026; 2023–2026 for anomaly detection), indexed in Q1–Q3 JCR journals, excluding theoretical and non-benchmarked works. A six-item risk of bias questionnaire—with a threshold of four points—guided inclusion, yielding 60 articles. Addressing the first research question (RQ1) on comparative model performance, hybrid deep learning architectures optimized with bio-inspired metaheuristics achieved the highest forecasting accuracy (R2 up to 0.9984), with metaheuristic optimization acting as a cost-reducing factor; statistical models remained competitive for long-horizon forecasting, while large-language-model-based approaches addressed data scarcity through few-shot learning. Addressing the second research question (RQ2) on smart grid optimization, predictive techniques reduce forecasting errors enabling real-time load adjustment and Demand Response, though a systematic asymmetry constrains their potential: consumption studies integrate socio-economic variables, whereas generation studies rely on meteorological inputs. Addressing the third research question (RQ3) on infrastructure security, supervised and unsupervised approaches detect anomalous operational states and support fault diagnosis, yet remain constrained by scarce labeled fault data and limited cross-regional validation; generative models such as GANs and diffusion models partially address this limitation by enabling Sim2Real strategies and realistic digital twin construction. Evidence is strongest for hybrid forecasting; certainty is lower for anomaly detection given reliance on experimental surrogates. No single paradigm achieves universal superiority. The primary finding is the consistent absence of integrated frameworks jointly modeling consumption, generation, anomaly detection, and public decision-making across the reviewed literature. This result reflects a structural limitation of the current state of the art, rather than a forward-looking research agenda. This study was funded by the ENIA International Chair on Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence European Recovery Plan; the protocol was not pre-registered.
Ayuso et al. (Wed,) studied this question.