Machine learning-based short-term solar power forecasting: a comparison between regression and classification approaches using extensive Australian dataset

Solar energy production is an intermittent process that is affected by weather and climate conditions. This can lead to unstable and fluctuating electricity generation, which can cause financial losses and damage to the power grid. To better control power production, it is important to predict solar energy production. Big data and machine learning algorithms have yielded excellent results in this regard. This study compares the performance of two different machine learning approaches to solar energy production prediction: regression and classification. The regression approach predicts the actual power output, while the classification approach predicts whether the power output will be above or below a certain threshold. The study found that the random forest regressor algorithm performed the best in terms of accuracy, with mean absolute errors and root mean square errors of 0.046 and 0.11, respectively. However, it did not predict peak power values effectively, which can lead to higher errors. The long short-term memory algorithm performed better in classifying peak power values. The study concluded that classification models may be better at generalizing than regression models. This proposed approach is valuable for interpreting model performance and improving prediction accuracy. © The Author(s) 2024.