A Photovoltaic Power Predicting Model Using the Differential Evolution Algorithm and Multi-Task Learning

Abstract

The rapid growth of photovoltaic installed capacity exacerbates the power management challenges faced by photovoltaic power stations, emphasizing the importance of accurate and stable photovoltaic generation forecasting. As a result, researchers conducted research and developed several photovoltaic power prediction models. However, many prediction models focus exclusively on the algorithm structure in order to improve model accuracy, oblivious to how the dataset is constructed and divided for the prediction model. This paper proposes a comprehensive model to address this gap. To be more precise, the differential evolution algorithm is constantly looking for optimal values between different populations and determining the best way to construct datasets for prediction tasks. Multi-task learning enables the transfer of knowledge between related tasks via parameter sharing layers, referring to the accuracy and stability of prediction models. Overall, the proposed model achieves high prediction accuracy and stability. The prediction error of the proposed model is less than 450W in RMSE, NRMSE is less than 2.5%, and R-Square is greater than 99% in multiple prediction tasks. Additionally, when compared to other single-task prediction models with an R-Square greater than 96%, the proposed model further reduces the root mean squared error by an average of 28% and the standard deviation of root mean squared error by 54%.