International Journal of Photoenergy (Jan 2022)
Forecasting Solar Energy Production Using Machine Learning
Abstract
When it comes to large-scale renewable energy plants, the future of solar power forecasting is vital to their success. For reliable predictions of solar electricity generation, one must take into consideration changes in weather patterns over time. In this paper, a hybrid model that integrates machine learning and statistical approaches is suggested for predicting future solar energy generation. In order to improve the accuracy of the suggested model, an ensemble of machine learning models was used in this study. The results of the simulation show that the proposed method has reduced placement cost, when compared with existing methods. When comparing the performance of an ensemble model that integrates all of the combination strategies to standard individual models, the suggested ensemble model outperformed the conventional individual models. According to the findings, a hybrid model that made use of both machine learning and statistics outperformed a model that made sole use of machine learning in its performance.