Individual yield nowcasting for residential PV systems

Daniel Grzebyk, Alba Alcañiz *, Jaap Donker, Miro Zeman, Hesan Ziar, Olindo Isabella

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)
137 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Due to the inherent uncertainty in photovoltaic (PV) energy generation, an accurate power forecasting is essential to ensure a reliable operation of PV systems and a safe electric grid. Machine learning (ML) techniques have gained popularity on the development of this task due to its increased accuracy. Most literature, however, focuses only on less than 5 PV systems during training process, which does not ensure generalization to unseen systems. When in presence of a large feet, regional forecasts are the norm. Nevertheless, none of these approaches are usable when it comes to monitoring residential PV systems. In this work, we propose a single ML model that is able to predict the individual power of a large fleet of 1102 PV systems. XGBoost algorithm was selected as the most suitable algorithm for the task of PV yield nowcasting due to its performance and ease of use. This algorithm obtains Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 0.877 kWh (considering an average system size of 4.44 kWp) and Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) of 23% for hourly data aggregated to daily values. XGBoost predictions for individual PV systems are on average two times better than currently used commercial software. We discuss the lack of a suitable loss function that can combine absolute and relative errors for residential PV yield forecasting. We also point out the lack of an adequate metric to compute the error made on the predictions and provide hints on developing a suitable one.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)325-336
Number of pages12
JournalSolar Energy
Volume251
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Keywords

  • Forecasting
  • Loss function
  • Machine learning
  • Nowcasting
  • Photovoltaics
  • Solar yield prediction
  • XGBoost

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