Accurate forecasting of electric load has always been the most important issues in the electricity industry, particularly for developing countries. Due to the various influences, electric load forecasting reveals highly nonlinear characteristics. Recently, Support vector regression (SVR), with nonlinear mapping capabilities of forecasting, has been Successfully employed to solve nonlinear regression and time series problems. However, it is still lack of systematic approaches to determine appropriate parameter combination for a SVR model. This investigation elucidates the feasibility of applying chaotic particle swarm optimization (CPSO) algorithm to choose the suitable parameter combination for a SVR model. The empirical results reveal that the proposed model outperforms the other two models applying other algorithms, genetic algorithm (GA) and simulated annealing algorithm (SA). Finally, it also provides the theoretical exploration of the electric load forecasting support system (ELFSS). (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.