The invention discloses a short-term electric load prediction method based on improved genetic algorithm for optimizing extreme learning machine. A hill climbing method is used to perform preferentialselection again in the progeny population, an initial individual is selected, another individual in a close area is select, their fitness values are compared, and one individual which has good fitness values is leaved. If the initial individual is replaced or a better individual cannot be found in several iterations, iteration is stopped, the search direction of the genetic algorithm through thehill climbing method is optimized, obtaining an optimal weight value and a threshold value, a network optimization prediction model are obtained, a network optimization prediction model is obtained, the network optimization prediction model and prediction results of BP network and the extreme learning machine are comparative analyzed, including selection of input and output of the prediction network model, algorithm of improved genetic algorithm for optimizing extreme learning machine, and analysis of prediction results. The short-term electric load prediction method based on improved geneticalgorithm for optimizing extreme learning machine has faster training speed and more accurate prediction results, and is suitable for modern short-term electric load prediction with plenty of influence factors and huge data volume.