Enhancing solar radiation forecasting accuracy with a hybrid SA-Bi-LSTM-Bi-GRU model
摘要
Accurate solar radiation forecasting is essential for optimizing the design, operation, and management of solar power systems. It ensures reliable energy trading, efficient maintenance scheduling and stable power generation. Deep learning (DL) models, known for capturing complex nonlinear relationships, have demonstrated potential in solar irradiance prediction. However, limitations such as data variability and privacy concerns persist. To overcome these challenges, this study introduces a novel hybrid DL model that combines self-attention, bidirectional long short-term memory, and bidirectional gated recurrent unit architectures. The model is trained using features selected through recursive feature elimination and ridge regression, ensuring the most relevant data is utilized for prediction. Using ground-measured global horizontal irradiance dataset, the proposed SA-Bi-LSTM-Bi-GRU model achieves exceptional forecasting performance. It significantly reduces MAE by 64.40–90.34 W/m2, RMSE by 16.15–57.30% W/m2, MAPE by 41.38–69.78%, NMRSE by 8.29–21.65% W/m2 compared to considered standalone and hybrid models, while achieving an R2 of 0.98. These improvements underscore the model's ability to deliver precise and reliable forecasts, enhancing grid stability and energy efficiency. By integrating advanced architectures and achieving substantial performance gains, this model offers a groundbreaking solution for sustainable solar energy management.