Multiple-Input Deep Convolutional Neural Network Model for Short-Term Photovoltaic Power Forecasting

With the fast expansion of renewable energy system installed capacity in recent years, the availability, stability, and quality of smart grids have become increasingly important. The renewable energy output forecasting applications have also been developing rapidly in recent years, and such techniques have particularly been applied in the fields of wind and solar photovoltaic (PV). In the case of solar PV output forecasting, many applications have been performed with machine learning and hybrid techniques. In this paper, we propose a high-precision deep neural network model named PVPNet to forecast PV system output power. The methodology behind the proposed model is based on deep neural networks, and the model is able to generate a 24-h probabilistic and deterministic forecasting of PV power output based on meteorological information, such as temperature, solar radiation, and historical PV system output data. The forecasting accuracy of PVPNet is determined by the mean absolute error (MAE) and root mean square error (RMSE) values. The results from the experiments show that the MAE and RMSE of the proposed algorithm are 109.4845 and 163.1513, respectively. The results prove that the prediction accuracy of the PVPNet outperforms other benchmark models, and the algorithm also effectively predicts complex time series with a high degree of volatility and irregularity.