Predicting Energy Generation in Large Wind Farms: A Data-Driven Study with Open Data and Machine Learning

Author(s)

Paula, Matheus ; Casaca, Wallace ; Colnago, Marilaine ; da Silva, Jose R. ; Oliveira, Kleber ; Dias, Mauricio A. ; Negri, Rogerio

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: INVENTIONS; v. 8, n. 5, p. 20-pg., 2023-10-01.

Abstract

Wind energy has become a trend in Brazil, particularly in the northeastern region of the country. Despite its advantages, wind power generation has been hindered by the high volatility of exogenous factors, such as weather, temperature, and air humidity, making long-term forecasting a highly challenging task. Another issue is the need for reliable solutions, especially for large-scale wind farms, as this involves integrating specific optimization tools and restricted-access datasets collected locally at the power plants. Therefore, in this paper, the problem of forecasting the energy generated at the Praia Formosa wind farm, an eco-friendly park located in the state of Ceara, Brazil, which produces around 7% of the state's electricity, was addressed. To proceed with our data-driven analysis, publicly available data were collected from multiple Brazilian official sources, combining them into a unified database to perform exploratory data analysis and predictive modeling. Specifically, three machine-learning-based approaches were applied: Extreme Gradient Boosting, Random Forest, and Long Short-Term Memory Network, as well as feature-engineering strategies to enhance the precision of the machine intelligence models, including creating artificial features and tuning the hyperparameters. Our findings revealed that all implemented models successfully captured the energy-generation trends, patterns, and seasonality from the complex wind data. However, it was found that the LSTM-based model consistently outperformed the others, achieving a promising global MAPE of 4.55%, highlighting its accuracy in long-term wind energy forecasting. Temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed were identified as the key factors influencing electricity production, with peak generation typically occurring from August to November. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 21/01305-6 - Theoretical advances on anomaly detection and environmental monitoring systems building
• Grantee: Rogério Galante Negri
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• FAPESP's process: 21/03328-3 - Development of new methodologies and machine intelligence-based technological solutions for digital image segmentation and COVID-19 pandemic response
• Grantee: Wallace Correa de Oliveira Casaca
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• FAPESP's process: 16/24185-8 - Anomaly detection, analysis and localization: a case study on digital static images from remote sensing applied to Cartography
• Grantee: Maurício Araújo Dias
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• FAPESP's process: 13/07375-0 - CeMEAI - Center for Mathematical Sciences Applied to Industry
• Grantee: Francisco Louzada Neto
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Research, Innovation and Dissemination Centers - RIDC