IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/energy/v240y2022ics0360544221029820.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Comparative study of machine learning approaches for predicting short-term photovoltaic power output based on weather type classification

Author

Listed:
  • Wang, Xiaoyang
  • Sun, Yunlin
  • Luo, Duo
  • Peng, Jinqing

Abstract

To combat the worsening global energy shortage, global photovoltaic (PV) installation capacity has been increasing rapidly every year. Since the instability and intermittence of PV power output have great impacts on utility grids, accurate PV power output prediction is crucial. This paper proposes the use of machine learning approaches, combined with a weather type classification method, to predict short-term PV power output. The datasets are collected from a commercial PV power station located in Yangjiang, Guangdong province of China (latitude 21.56 °N, longitude 112.09 °E). Firstly, daytime meteorological data from 07:30 to 18:00 are divided into six 2-h intervals, and then the meteorological conditions of each interval are divided into four categories using an Extremely randomized Trees Classification model according to the PV power generation in each period. Secondly, nine machine learning models are established based on the weather type classification to predict the PV power output. The results show that weather type classification is vital to the selection of appropriate machine learning models and the accurate prediction of PV power output because the characteristic correlation between the meteorological data and PV power output always changes. In general, the Lasso Regressor, Random Forest Regressor, Gradient Boosting Regressor, and Support Vector Regressor models show better performances than the other models. Furthermore, all the models’ accuracy is relatively high when the local meteorological conditions are relatively stable, such as in October, November, and December, during which time the Mean Relative Error values are 2.07, 1.07, and 1.73, respectively. During the period when the weather is unstable, the performance of the SVR model is better than that of the other models. The prediction accuracy can be significantly improved with integrating the accurate weather classification into the model. With regards to each daytime period, the prediction accuracy in the morning and evening is relatively high and the MREs for these times are small. This study provides a theoretical basis for selecting appropriate machine learning models to predict photovoltaic power generation under different weather conditions.

Suggested Citation

  • Wang, Xiaoyang & Sun, Yunlin & Luo, Duo & Peng, Jinqing, 2022. "Comparative study of machine learning approaches for predicting short-term photovoltaic power output based on weather type classification," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 240(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:240:y:2022:i:c:s0360544221029820
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2021.122733
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544221029820
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.energy.2021.122733?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ahmed, R. & Sreeram, V. & Mishra, Y. & Arif, M.D., 2020. "A review and evaluation of the state-of-the-art in PV solar power forecasting: Techniques and optimization," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    2. Das, Utpal Kumar & Tey, Kok Soon & Seyedmahmoudian, Mehdi & Mekhilef, Saad & Idris, Moh Yamani Idna & Van Deventer, Willem & Horan, Bend & Stojcevski, Alex, 2018. "Forecasting of photovoltaic power generation and model optimization: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 81(P1), pages 912-928.
    3. Wang, Kejun & Qi, Xiaoxia & Liu, Hongda & Song, Jiakang, 2018. "Deep belief network based k-means cluster approach for short-term wind power forecasting," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 165(PA), pages 840-852.
    4. Zheng, Lingwei & Liu, Zhaokun & Shen, Junnan & Wu, Chenxi, 2018. "Very short-term maximum Lyapunov exponent forecasting tool for distributed photovoltaic output," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 229(C), pages 1128-1139.
    5. Eseye, Abinet Tesfaye & Zhang, Jianhua & Zheng, Dehua, 2018. "Short-term photovoltaic solar power forecasting using a hybrid Wavelet-PSO-SVM model based on SCADA and Meteorological information," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 357-367.
    6. van der Meer, D.W. & Widén, J. & Munkhammar, J., 2018. "Review on probabilistic forecasting of photovoltaic power production and electricity consumption," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 81(P1), pages 1484-1512.
    7. Cervone, Guido & Clemente-Harding, Laura & Alessandrini, Stefano & Delle Monache, Luca, 2017. "Short-term photovoltaic power forecasting using Artificial Neural Networks and an Analog Ensemble," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 274-286.
    8. Gao, Mingming & Li, Jianjing & Hong, Feng & Long, Dongteng, 2019. "Day-ahead power forecasting in a large-scale photovoltaic plant based on weather classification using LSTM," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    9. Wang, Kejun & Qi, Xiaoxia & Liu, Hongda, 2019. "A comparison of day-ahead photovoltaic power forecasting models based on deep learning neural network," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 251(C), pages 1-1.
    10. Ogliari, Emanuele & Dolara, Alberto & Manzolini, Giampaolo & Leva, Sonia, 2017. "Physical and hybrid methods comparison for the day ahead PV output power forecast," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 11-21.
    11. Li, Yanting & He, Yong & Su, Yan & Shu, Lianjie, 2016. "Forecasting the daily power output of a grid-connected photovoltaic system based on multivariate adaptive regression splines," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 392-401.
    12. Bou-Rabee, Mohammed & Sulaiman, Shaharin A. & Saleh, Magdy Saad & Marafi, Suhaila, 2017. "Using artificial neural networks to estimate solar radiation in Kuwait," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 434-438.
    13. Qing, Xiangyun & Niu, Yugang, 2018. "Hourly day-ahead solar irradiance prediction using weather forecasts by LSTM," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 461-468.
    14. Prasad, Ramendra & Ali, Mumtaz & Kwan, Paul & Khan, Huma, 2019. "Designing a multi-stage multivariate empirical mode decomposition coupled with ant colony optimization and random forest model to forecast monthly solar radiation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 236(C), pages 778-792.
    15. Liu, Luyao & Zhao, Yi & Chang, Dongliang & Xie, Jiyang & Ma, Zhanyu & Sun, Qie & Yin, Hongyi & Wennersten, Ronald, 2018. "Prediction of short-term PV power output and uncertainty analysis," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 228(C), pages 700-711.
    16. Li, Pengtao & Zhou, Kaile & Lu, Xinhui & Yang, Shanlin, 2020. "A hybrid deep learning model for short-term PV power forecasting," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 259(C).
    17. Leva, S. & Dolara, A. & Grimaccia, F. & Mussetta, M. & Ogliari, E., 2017. "Analysis and validation of 24 hours ahead neural network forecasting of photovoltaic output power," Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (MATCOM), Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 88-100.
    18. Jamal, Taskin & Carter, Craig & Schmidt, Thomas & Shafiullah, G.M. & Calais, Martina & Urmee, Tania, 2019. "An energy flow simulation tool for incorporating short-term PV forecasting in a diesel-PV-battery off-grid power supply system," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 254(C).
    19. Liu, Da & Sun, Kun, 2019. "Random forest solar power forecast based on classification optimization," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    20. Koster, Daniel & Minette, Frank & Braun, Christian & O'Nagy, Oliver, 2019. "Short-term and regionalized photovoltaic power forecasting, enhanced by reference systems, on the example of Luxembourg," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 455-470.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jiaan Zhang & Yan Hao & Ruiqing Fan & Zhenzhen Wang, 2023. "An Ultra-Short-Term PV Power Forecasting Method for Changeable Weather Based on Clustering and Signal Decomposition," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-15, March.
    2. Huang, Xiaoqiao & Liu, Jun & Xu, Shaozhen & Li, Chengli & Li, Qiong & Tai, Yonghang, 2023. "A 3D ConvLSTM-CNN network based on multi-channel color extraction for ultra-short-term solar irradiance forecasting," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 272(C).
    3. Liu, Shuhan & Sun, Wenqiang, 2023. "Attention mechanism-aided data- and knowledge-driven soft sensors for predicting blast furnace gas generation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 262(PA).
    4. Zheng, Lingwei & Su, Ran & Sun, Xinyu & Guo, Siqi, 2023. "Historical PV-output characteristic extraction based weather-type classification strategy and its forecasting method for the day-ahead prediction of PV output," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 271(C).
    5. Amini Toosi, Hashem & Del Pero, Claudio & Leonforte, Fabrizio & Lavagna, Monica & Aste, Niccolò, 2023. "Machine learning for performance prediction in smart buildings: Photovoltaic self-consumption and life cycle cost optimization," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 334(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wang, Jianzhou & Zhou, Yilin & Li, Zhiwu, 2022. "Hour-ahead photovoltaic generation forecasting method based on machine learning and multi objective optimization algorithm," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 312(C).
    2. Nguyen, Thi Ngoc & Müsgens, Felix, 2022. "What drives the accuracy of PV output forecasts?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 323(C).
    3. Sarmas, Elissaios & Spiliotis, Evangelos & Stamatopoulos, Efstathios & Marinakis, Vangelis & Doukas, Haris, 2023. "Short-term photovoltaic power forecasting using meta-learning and numerical weather prediction independent Long Short-Term Memory models," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    4. Korkmaz, Deniz, 2021. "SolarNet: A hybrid reliable model based on convolutional neural network and variational mode decomposition for hourly photovoltaic power forecasting," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 300(C).
    5. Zhen, Hao & Niu, Dongxiao & Wang, Keke & Shi, Yucheng & Ji, Zhengsen & Xu, Xiaomin, 2021. "Photovoltaic power forecasting based on GA improved Bi-LSTM in microgrid without meteorological information," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    6. Martina Radicioni & Valentina Lucaferri & Francesco De Lia & Antonino Laudani & Roberto Lo Presti & Gabriele Maria Lozito & Francesco Riganti Fulginei & Riccardo Schioppo & Mario Tucci, 2021. "Power Forecasting of a Photovoltaic Plant Located in ENEA Casaccia Research Center," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-22, January.
    7. Qu, Jiaqi & Qian, Zheng & Pei, Yan, 2021. "Day-ahead hourly photovoltaic power forecasting using attention-based CNN-LSTM neural network embedded with multiple relevant and target variables prediction pattern," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 232(C).
    8. Li, Chengdong & Zhou, Changgeng & Peng, Wei & Lv, Yisheng & Luo, Xin, 2020. "Accurate prediction of short-term photovoltaic power generation via a novel double-input-rule-modules stacked deep fuzzy method," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    9. Li, Qing & Zhang, Xinyan & Ma, Tianjiao & Jiao, Chunlei & Wang, Heng & Hu, Wei, 2021. "A multi-step ahead photovoltaic power prediction model based on similar day, enhanced colliding bodies optimization, variational mode decomposition, and deep extreme learning machine," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    10. du Plessis, A.A. & Strauss, J.M. & Rix, A.J., 2021. "Short-term solar power forecasting: Investigating the ability of deep learning models to capture low-level utility-scale Photovoltaic system behaviour," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 285(C).
    11. Elena Collino & Dario Ronzio, 2021. "Exploitation of a New Short-Term Multimodel Photovoltaic Power Forecasting Method in the Very Short-Term Horizon to Derive a Multi-Time Scale Forecasting System," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-30, February.
    12. Minli Wang & Peihong Wang & Tao Zhang, 2022. "Evidential Extreme Learning Machine Algorithm-Based Day-Ahead Photovoltaic Power Forecasting," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-25, May.
    13. Khan, Waqas & Walker, Shalika & Zeiler, Wim, 2022. "Improved solar photovoltaic energy generation forecast using deep learning-based ensemble stacking approach," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 240(C).
    14. Medine Colak & Mehmet Yesilbudak & Ramazan Bayindir, 2020. "Daily Photovoltaic Power Prediction Enhanced by Hybrid GWO-MLP, ALO-MLP and WOA-MLP Models Using Meteorological Information," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-19, February.
    15. Thi Ngoc Nguyen & Felix Musgens, 2021. "What drives the accuracy of PV output forecasts?," Papers 2111.02092, arXiv.org.
    16. Xu, Fang Yuan & Tang, Rui Xin & Xu, Si Bin & Fan, Yi Liang & Zhou, Ya & Zhang, Hao Tian, 2021. "Neural network-based photovoltaic generation capacity prediction system with benefit-oriented modification," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 223(C).
    17. Hassan, Muhammed A. & Bailek, Nadjem & Bouchouicha, Kada & Nwokolo, Samuel Chukwujindu, 2021. "Ultra-short-term exogenous forecasting of photovoltaic power production using genetically optimized non-linear auto-regressive recurrent neural networks," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 191-209.
    18. Mitrentsis, Georgios & Lens, Hendrik, 2022. "An interpretable probabilistic model for short-term solar power forecasting using natural gradient boosting," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 309(C).
    19. Athanasios I. Salamanis & Georgia Xanthopoulou & Napoleon Bezas & Christos Timplalexis & Angelina D. Bintoudi & Lampros Zyglakis & Apostolos C. Tsolakis & Dimosthenis Ioannidis & Dionysios Kehagias & , 2020. "Benchmark Comparison of Analytical, Data-Based and Hybrid Models for Multi-Step Short-Term Photovoltaic Power Generation Forecasting," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-31, November.
    20. Luo, Xing & Zhang, Dongxiao & Zhu, Xu, 2021. "Deep learning based forecasting of photovoltaic power generation by incorporating domain knowledge," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 225(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:240:y:2022:i:c:s0360544221029820. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.