Random forest machine learning algorithm based seasonal multi-step ahead short-term solar photovoltaic power output forecasting

Abstract

To maintain grid stability, the energy levels produced by sources within the network must be equal to the energy consumed by customers. In current times, achieving energy balance mainly involves regulating the electrical energy sources, as consumption is typically beyond the control of grid operators. For improving the stability of the grid, accurate forecasting of photovoltaic power output from largely integrated solar photovoltaic plant connected to grid is required. In the present study, to improve the forecasting accuracy of the forecasting models, onsite measurements of the weather parameters and the photovoltaic power output from the 20 kW on-grid were collected for a typical year which covers all four seasons and evaluated the random forest techniques and other techniques like deep neural networks, artificial neural networks and support vector regression (reference in this study). The simulation results show that the proposed random forest technique for the forecasting horizon of 15 and 30 min is performing well with 49% and 50% improvements in the accuracy respectively over reference model for the study location 22.78°N, 73.65°E, College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, Anand Agricultural University, Godhra, India.