Univariate Deep Learning Models for Short-Term Electricity Load Forecasting from Renewables

Abstract

Renewable energy offers a cost-effective, carbon-free solution for energy needs, while protecting the environment. Accurate forecasting of electricity generation from renewable sources is crucial for the efficiency of modern power grids. This study employs a univariate deep learning approach to predict daily renewable energy generation, evaluating Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) and Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) as candidate models. Five performance metrics-mean absolute error, root mean squared error, mean absolute percentage error, mean absolute scaled error and the coefficient of determination-are employed to assess the forecasting power of the algorithms. The empirical results show that CNN outperforms other models, achieving an R2 of almost 94%. This research shows that the univariate model based on historical data of electricity load generated from renewables can accurately predict day-ahead electricity load, even without meteorological data.