We are interested in the online prediction of the electricity load, within
the Bayesian framework of dynamic models. We offer a review of sequential Monte
Carlo methods, and provide the calculations needed for the derivation of
so-called particles filters. We also discuss the practical issues arising from
their use, and some of the variants proposed in the literature to deal with
them, giving detailed algorithms whenever possible for an easy implementation.
We propose an additional step to help make basic particle filters more robust
with regard to outlying observations. Finally we use such a particle filter to
estimate a state-space model that includes exogenous variables in order to
forecast the electricity load for the customers of the French electricity
company \'Electricit\'e de France and discuss the various results obtained
