Deep solar radiation forecasting with convolutional neural network and long short-term memory network algorithms

This paper designs a hybridized deep learning framework that integrates the Convolutional Neural Network for pattern recognition with the Long Short-Term Memory Network for half-hourly global solar radiation (GSR) forecasting. The Convolution network is applied to robustly extract data input features from predictive variables (i.e., statistically significant antecedent inputs) while Long Short-Term Memory absorbs them for prediction. Half-hourly GSR for Alice Springs (Australia: 01 January 2006 to 31 August 2018) are extracted with stationarity checks applied via unit-root and mutual information test to capture antecedent GSR values required to forecast future GSR. The proposed hybrid model is benchmarked with standalone models as well as other Deep Learning, Single Hidden Layer and Tree based models. The results show that the benchmarked models are not able to generate satisfactory GSR predictions and the proposed hybrid model outperforms all other counterparts. The hybrid model registers superior results with over 70% of predictive errors lying below ±10 Wm−2 and outperforms the benchmark model for 1-Day half-hourly GSR prediction with low Relative Root Mean Square Error (≈1.515%), Mean Absolute Percentage Error (≈4.672%) and Absolute Percentage Bias (≈1.233%). This study ascertains that a proposed hybrid model based on a convolution network framework can accurately predict GSR and enable energy availability to be regularly monitored over multi-step horizons when coupled with a low latency Long Short-Term Memory network. Furthermore, it also concludes that the proposed model can have practical implications in forecasting GSR, capitalizing its versatility as a stratagem in monitoring solar powered systems by integrating freely available solar radiation into a real power grid system.