Long-term prediction of wind speed in La Serena City (Chile) using hybrid neural network-particle swarm algorithm

Abstract

An artificial neural network was used for forecasting of long-term wind speed data (24 and 48 hours ahead) in La Serena City (Chile). In order to obtain a more effective correlation and prediction, a particle swarm algorithm was implemented to update the weights of the network. 43800 data points of wind speed were used (years 2003- 2007), and the past values of wind speed, relative humidity, and air temperature were used as input parameters, considering that these meteorogical parameters are more readily available around the globe. Several neural network architectures were studied, and the optimum architecture was determined by adding neurons in systematic form and evaluating the root mean square error (RMSE) during the learning process. The results show that the meteorological variables used as input parameters, have influential effects on the good training and predicting capabilities of the chosen network, and that the hybrid neural network can forecast the hourly wind speed with acceptable accuracy, such as: RMSE=0.81 [m·s−1], MSE=0.65 [m·s−1] 2 and R2 =0.97 for 24-hours-ahead wind speed prediction, and RMSE=0.78, MSE=0.634 [m·s−1] 2 and R2 =0.97 for 48-hours-ahead wind speed prediction.

Keywords

• Wind speed
• time series forecasting
• artificial neural network
• particle swarm optimization
• meteorological data