Temporal-Alignment Cluster Identification and Relevance-Driven Feature Refinement for Ultra-Short-Term Wind Power Forecasting

Ultra-short-term wind power forecasting is challenged by high volatility and complex temporal patterns, with traditional single-model approaches often failing to provide stable and accurate predictions under diverse operational scenarios. To address this issue, a framework based on the TCN-ELM hybrid model with temporal alignment clustering and feature refinement is proposed for ultra-short-term wind power forecasting. First, dynamic time warping (DTW)–K-means is applied to cluster historical power curves in the temporal alignment space, identifying consistent operational patterns and providing prior information for subsequent predictions. Then, a correlation-driven feature refinement method is introduced to weight and select the most representative meteorological and power sequence features within each cluster, optimizing the feature set for improved prediction accuracy. Next, a TCN-ELM hybrid model is constructed, combining the advantages of temporal convolutional networks (TCNs) in capturing sequential features and an extreme learning machine (ELM) in efficient nonlinear modelling. This hybrid approach enhances forecasting performance through their synergistic capabilities. Traditional ultra-short-term forecasting often focuses solely on historical power as input, especially with a 15 min resolution, but this study emphasizes reducing the time scale of meteorological forecasts and power samples to within one hour, aiming to improve the reliability of the forecasting model in handling sudden meteorological changes within the ultra-short-term time horizon. To validate the proposed framework, comparisons are made with several benchmark models, including traditional TCN, ELM, and long short-term memory (LSTM) networks. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed framework achieves higher prediction accuracy and better robustness across various operational modes, particularly under high-variability scenarios, out-performing conventional models like TCN and ELM. The method provides a reliable technical solution for ultra-short-term wind power forecasting, grid scheduling, and power system stability.