Solar Radiation Forecasting Using Artificial
Neural Network for Local Power Reserve
Xingyu YAN1 Dhaker ABBES2
1
L2EP, EC de Lille, Cité Scientifique, 59651, Villeneuve d'Ascq, France
2
L2EP, HEI, 13 Rue de Toul, 59800, Lille
E-mail: xingyu.yan@ec-lille.fr
Abstract— Renewable energy sources have a variable
nature and are greatly depending on weather conditions.
The load is also uncertain. Hence, it is necessary to use
power reserve equipment to compensate unforeseen
imbalances between production and load. However, this
power reserve must be ideally minimized in order to
reduce the system cost with a satisfying security level. The
quantification of power reserve could be calculated
through analysis of forecasting uncertainty errors of both
generation and load. Therefore, in this paper, a back
propagation artificial neural network approaches is
derived to forecast solar radiations. Predictions have been
analyzed according to weather classification. Some error
indexes have been introduced to evaluate forecasting
models performances and calculate the prediction
accuracy. Forecasting results can be used for decision
making of power reserve for renewable energy sources
system with some probability or possibility methods.
Keywords--- photovoltaic power; power reserve; solar
radiation forecasting; Artificial Neural Network
I. INTRODUCTION
As energy prices get more and more high and CO
emissions should be limited, new electrical generators
supply options based on distributed resources are
required. Thus, thanks to technological advancement and
government policies, electricity produced by renewable
energy sources (RES) is constantly increasing in the
world. This development of RES contributes to energy
supply portfolio diversity and greatly reducing the risks
of expanded usage of fossil fuels. And also, it’s the most
environmentally benign energy supply option available
in current and near-term market [1]. However, energy
productions of the RES, such as PV and wind power, are
characterized by uncertainty and intermittence. They are
greatly influenced by meteorological conditions.
Facing the problem, power reserve is needed to cover
unforeseen events caused by sudden decrease or/and
increase of generators or/and in demand and unexpected
loss of generators/lines. It can help to provide ancillary
services in a local electrical network for frequency
regulation and voltage regulation, etc. [2] However,
978-1-4799-7300-2/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE
Bruno FRANCOIS1
power reserve equipment is greatly increasing overall
cost of power generation system. Thus, the balance
between the amount of power reserve and the resulting
cost needs to be considered and power reserve needs to
be minimized while satisfying system security. Decision
making approaches of power reserve can be computed
by forecasting error uncertainty analysis [3, 4].
Technical and economic power forecasting models for
wind farms or grid-connected PV plants are also
advanced. In recent decades, several PV power
forecasting models have been published. Some of these
works were specifically dedicated to the PV power
forecasting of power generation [6, 9-11], while some of
these works were oriented to obtain solar radiation
predictions [7]. Although some forecasting model have
been done by using simple physical methods, the more
universally applied technique is a specific soft-
computing technique and is known as Artificial Neural
Network (ANN). Since there are many factors, such as
irradiation, air/panels temperature, humidity, pressure,
cloud cover percentage, wind speed and other ones that
can affect the PV power generation, different parameters
have been used in each paper. As example, in paper [10],
aerosol index was used with hourly PV output power,
humidity, temperature, and wind speed while in paper
[9], atmospheric pressure and cloud coverage were used.
In addition, some error indexes are introduced to
evaluate the performances of the forecasting models too.
This paper uses a model of ANN for next 24-hours
solar radiation prediction, based on last 24-hours
radiation and multiple meteorological data. Firstly back
propagation (BP) neural network is trained with
historical meteorological data, and then weather data of
the objective day are used as input variables of the
designed BP neural network to get hourly irradiation
output prediction. The efficiency of the proposed method
is validated by analyzing the maximum error and mean
absolute percentage error between predicted values and
measured values and standard deviation. The paper is
organized as follows. In section 2 a brief review of the
PV power forecasting methods is presented. In section 3
the applied method is described giving emphasis to the by using a large number of artificial neurons. In brief,
BP neural network. In the section 4 a case study is neural network can learn, memorize and establish a
presented and results are analyzed by using an error system model through handling external information to
metric previously presented. To conclude, some get the capabilities of prediction and self-diagnosing.
conclusions are stated and several perspectives are Nowadays, ANN has been succeeded in several power
proposed for future study. system problems, such as planning, control, analysis,
protection, design, forecasting, security analysis, and
II. PV POWER FORECASTING METHODS fault diagnosis [12]. Back-Propagation Network (BPN)
is one of the most widespread and representative
According to the literature, power production learning rules in the ANN [13-15]. Many ANN
forecasting methods of RES are commonly classified structures can be designed according to the application
into three categories: physical models, statistical models issues and implement generally mathematical
and hybrid models [10]. Physical models are based on approximations [8]. In our study, a basic structure of a
mathematical equations and are used to describe the three-layer BPN is shown in Fig 1. Fig 1 can be
ability of PV system to convert the introduced explained by mathematical equations to illustrate the
meteorological resources into electrical power [11-12]. relationships between inputs and outputs of artificial
These models are based only on solar radiation or some neurons.
more additional parameters, so they are not complicated.
However, the major disadvantage is that they have to be Neuron input variables are X= [ x , x , … , x ] T,
designed specifically for a particular energy system and hidden layer units are U = [ u , u , … , u ] T, output
location due to sensitization of weather prediction error. variables are Y = [y , y , … , y ] T. The interconnection
Statistical methods, for example ANN, are depending on weights are θ .
the theory of persistence or stochastic time series.
According to studied literature, ANN has been
effectively used in prediction of hourly irradiation output
[7, 14]. The main drawback of this method is that u1
historical data of real power productions as well as x1 y1
weather forecast are necessary to train the ANN to get u2
the appropriate weights among neurons in order to x2 y2
minimize the error during iteration. Moreover, the
u3
randomly setting of original weights can induce slightly
differences in results for each time. Any combination of xn yl
two or more of the previously described methods is a
hybrid model. As for the combining models, the basic um
idea is to combine the unique features of each method to
improve the forecasting accuracy. bias1 bias2
Fig. 1. The structure of a three-layer BP network
In addition, according to literatures there are two kinds
of outputs for PV forecasting: PV power and global solar
radiation (GSR). If we consider the electrical energy PE For the hidden layer,
extracted from the physical models based on global solar
radiation GSR , which is received by a PV panel, the n ∑ θ x b , j=1, 2, …, m (2)
equation for a simplified model is as follows [5]:
u f n , j=1, 2, …, m (3)
PE αGSR A 1 0.005 t 25 (1)
For the neuron output,
where α is the conversion efficiency of the solar panel,
A is its surface size, and t is the outside air temperature. n ∑ θ x b , j=1, 2, …, l (4)
Since the parameters α and A can be easily found from
datasheet of the PV panel and they are constant, the y f n , j=1, 2, …, l (5)
essential of this two methods are the same.
where the transfer function of the neurons f(z) is the
III. BACK-PROPAGATION ANN STRUCTURE sigmoid function and can be expressed as follows:

Based on the operating of the brain, artificial neural f z (6)

network is aiming to imitate neural network capabilities
 The interconnection weights in the neural network are
randomly settled before its training and they are
gradually adjusted with an increasing number of training
times in order to minimize the errors between the target
values and output values of neural network. For that
reason, an appropriate training method for the neural
network is obligatory needed to learn iteratively until
each input properly corresponds to the desirable output.
Based on a multilayered, feed-forward topology, with
supervised learning, back-propagation network is one of
the most widespread and representative learning rules in
the neural network. The algorithm of a typical BPN can
be divided into two parts: feed-forward and back-
propagation stages. In the first stage, the BPN starts out
with randomly settled weights on each synapsis. Then a
training set of input data is imported and transmitted to
output layer, and the output should go along with every
input. In the second back-propagation stage, the weights
are incrementally adjusted and errors between target
values and output values are propagated back to the
network. At this stage, the back-propagation algorithm is
based on the gradient descent method to modify the
weights.
The training procedure of a BPN method can be
explained as follows:
A) Setting the neuron input:
h x ∑ θx b (7)
where x is the input variable, the interconnected weights
θT θ , θ , … , θ and bias b .
B) Set up network’s related parameters, such as size
of hidden layer and learning rate, and randomly
initialize weights and biases, then input training
data (X, Y).
C) Output and error calculation of hidden and output
layers with a cost function:
J θT ∑ h x y (8)
Starting with random θT , the goal is to choose the
suitable θT so that h x is close to the output y of the
training examples to get min T J θT .
D) Gradient descent algorithm (9) is used to reduce
J θT through constantly changing θT until we
hopefully end up at a minimum.
θ θ α J θ ,θ ,…,θ (9)
where α is the learning rate. If α is too small, gradient
descent can be slow to convergence. Whereas if α is too
large, gradient descent can overshoot the minimum and
may fail to converge, or even diverge.
E) If the convergence of target values reaches limit,
the training procedure can be stopped; otherwise,
go back to the step B and repeat until it converge.
After the training stage, a set of validation data are
used to validate the parameters, which have been
obtained with training data.
IV. CASE STUDY
A. Prediction structure and data description
ANN and its training with combination of other
computational intelligence techniques are nowadays very
well established. Nevertheless the paper does not aim to
present a pure theoretical contribution, but introduces a
BP-ANN method for GSR prediction with some
meteorological parameters. By using the prediction
process, next 24-hour GSR forecasted data can be
obtained. By comparing them with the real GSR data in
the same day, forecast errors can be used for uncertainty
analysis, as shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2. Prediction flow process
In this paper, real data measured by the National
Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) (latitude: 39°54'
38.34" North; longitude: 105°14' 5.28" West; elevation:
1855 meters) are used for the neuron network training
and validation. Hourly data on GSR, specific humidity,
and air temperature from 2009/01/01 to 2011/12/30 are
shown in Figs. 3-5, respectively. Daily total values of
GSR fluctuate approximately between 0 to 9 kWh/m2/
day, as shown on Fig.3. Fig.4 shows daily average
specific humidity values which are variable between 400
to 1400 g/Kg (expressed as grams of water vapor per
kilogram of air). The daily average values of
temperature, as shown in the Fig. 6, to vary
approximately between -10 to 25°C, with some peaks
reaching -18°C in the winter.
 10 There is only one hidden layer in this model. A trial-
and-error method [13] has been used to determine the
TotGlobal PSP (kW-hr/m)
2

8 appropriate number of hidden neurons in this paper.

6
c) Output layer
4 Since the objective of this paper is to forecast GSR
one day-ahead, a total of 24 points of GSR output in
2 forecast day are taken as output for all hourly every day.
2009 2010 2011
0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 d) Assessment method
Observe Time (day)
In order to correctly define prediction accuracy and
Fig. 3. Daily mean global solar radiation at NREL
relative error, it is necessary to analyze different error
definitions. The starting point reference is the hourly
1500
error , defined as the difference between the measured
AVG Specific Humidity (g/Kg)

GSR in the hour , and the given prediction ,

provided by the neural model:
1000
e G , G , (10)
500
Absolute hourly error e , is the absolute value of
(10):
2009 2010 2011
0
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Observe Time (day)
e , |e | (11)

Fig. 4. Daily mean specific humidity at NREL Hourly absolute percentage error e%, , , based on
the hourly predicted GSR:
30
|e |
e%, (12)
AVG Temperature (°C)

20 , G ,

10
Daily Mean Absolute Prediction Error e%,MAPE ,
0 based on hourly output measured GSR (G , :
-10
| |
2009 2010 2011 e%,MAPE ∑ % (13)
-20 G ,
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Observe Time (day)
Also there are many ways to assess the prediction
model; the most commonly used are Root Mean Square
Fig. 5. Daily mean air temperature at NREL
Error (RMSE) and Mean Absolute Error (MAE).
B. Data training and validation
RMSE ∑ G , G , (14)
One year’s historical data of GSR, humidity, and
temperature (from 2009/01/01 to 2009/12/31) are used as
inputs for training the model. Next 60 days of data are MAE ∑ |G , G , | (15)
used for the validation and another 30 days of data are
used for the test. C. Forecasted results and discussion
a) Input layer In order to validate the accuracy of the obtained
Input data x x are 24 points of GSR in the last prediction model of GSR output, the GSR output of a
day in each hour; 24 points of specific humidity and clear sky day, a cloudy day, and a partly cloudy day were
average temperature in each hour of the predicted day. forecasted by using historical solar radiation data and
weather data, the curves of the measured data and
forecasted data are shown in Fig.6, Fig.7, and Fig.8,
b) Hidden layer
respectively.
 The e%,MAPE of the clear sky day is 1.4% (Fig. 6) and 1
e%,MAPE of a cloudy day is 3.0% (Fig. 7). However, the predict errors in cloudy day

Percentage Error (%)

e%,MAPE of a partly cloudy day is as high as 6.6%. The 0.8

prediction of a clear sky day and cloudy day is much 0.6

more accurate. In fact, in the clear sky and cloudy days
the solar radiation is relatively stable and not always 0.4

fluctuates, while in the partly cloudy day, the solar

0.2
radiation is greatly affected by cloud changes. In
particular, these results can be seen much clearly in table 0
0 5 10 15 20 25
1, where the predicted output based on the three kinds of Time (Hour)
weather conditions are summarized and compared by (b)
considering errors definitions previously introduced.
Figure 7 Cloudy day: (a) Comparisons of real measured and predicted
1000 GSR (b) Percentage error of %, ,
Real
900
Predicted
800
1000
Avg Global PSP (W/m)
2

700 Real
900
600 Predicted
800
500

Avg Global PSP (W/m)

2
700
400
300 600

200 500

100 400
0 300
0 5 10 15 20 25
Time (Hour) 200

(a) 100

0
1 0 5 10 15 20 25
predict errors in cleary sky day Time (Hour)

(a)
Percentage Error (%)

0.8

1
0.6
predict errors in partly cloudy day
Percentage Error (%)

0.8
0.4

0.6
0.2

0.4
0
0 5 10 15 20 25
Time (Hour) 0.2
(b)
0
0 5 10 15 20 25
Figure 6 Clear sky day: (a) Comparisons of real measured and Time (Hour)
predicted GSR (b) Percentage error of %, , (b)
1000
900
Real Figure 8 Party cloudy day: (a) Comparisons of real measured and
Predicted
800
predicted GSR (b) Percentage error of %, ,
Avg Global PSP (W/m)
2

700

600
In table 1, the results which have been given above are
500 shown.
400
Table 1. Production results and error calculation for three-day examples
300
Clear Cloudy Partly cl-
200
Physical quantities
100 sky day day oudy day
0 Real daily GSR (W/m2) 7045.3 2814.2 4266.0
0 5 10 15 20 25
Time (Hour) Predicted daily GSR 7142.6 2729.5 4546.5
(a) (W/m2)
Daily absolute error 97.3 84.7 280.5
(W/m2)
e%,MAPE (%) 1.4 3.0 6.6
Standard deviation (std) 0.019 0.064 0.084
 Table 2 shows the RMSE and MAE of the GSR
prediction neural network for training data, validation
data and test data respectively.
Table 2. RMSE and MAE for the GSR prediction neural
network
RMSE[%] MAE[%]
Training set 9.359 4.964
Validation set 11.849 6.714
Test set 9.811 5.057
V. CONCLUSION
Due to renewable energy penetration increase in the
electric grid, it is quite important to estimate the amount
of energy from such non-controllable sources. A BP
neural network is presented for the day-ahead GSR
forecasting by using some meteorological data. Errors
between predicted outputs and real measured data of
three different weather conditions are discussed. The
benefit of the proposed approach is that it does not need
complex modeling and calculation. The results show that
the predicted accuracy is enough.
In the future study, normal probability density
function (pdf) will be used for presenting the probability
and possibilities of error distribution for uncertainty
analysis. After assessing the uncertainty, the power
reserve can be quantified by taking into account the
associated reliability risk index. Fig. 9 shows the steps
necessary to be taken in order to assess the required
power reserve.
Figure 9 Quantification of power reserve steps
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