Half-hour global solar radiation forecasting based on static and dynamic multivariate neural networks

Abstract

Precise global solar radiation (GSR) measurements in a given location are very essential for designing and supervising solar energy systems. In the case of rarity or absence of these measurements, it is important to have a theoretical or empirical model to compute the GSR values. Therefore, the main goal of this work is to offer, to designers and engineers of solar energy systems, an appropriate and accurate way to predict the half-hour global solar radiation (HHGSR) time series from some available meteorological parameters (relative humidity, air temperature, wind speed, precipitation, and acquisition time vector in half-hour scale). For that purpose, two intelligent models are developed: the first one is a multivariate dynamic neural network with feedback connection, and the second is a multivariate static neural network. The database used to build these models was recorded in Agdal’s meteorological station in Marrakesh, Morocco, during the years of 2013 and 2014, and it was divided into two subsets. The first subset is used for training and validating the models, and the second subset is used for testing the efficiency and the robustness of the developed models. The obtained results, in terms of the statistical performance indicators, demonstrate the efficiency of the developed forecasting models to accurately predict the HHGSR parameter in the city of Marrakesh, Morocco.