Power prediction of regional distributed photovoltaic clusters with incomplete information based on improved weighted fusion and transfer learning

AbstractThe rapid expansion of low‐voltage distributed photovoltaic (PV) systems with decentralized layouts poses significant data collection challenges. The scarcity of data amplifies prediction complexities, affecting the operational security and stability of distribution networks. To enhance predictive accuracy for distributed regional PV power generation, including unmonitored low‐voltage systems, this paper proposes a novel prediction approach that combines weight optimization and transfer learning. Firstly, to more accurately extrapolate from neighbouring monitored PV to estimate unmonitored PV outputs, a novel SSA‐MLP‐XGBoost model is proposed for monitored PV power plants, in which the hyperparameters of multilayer perceptron (MLP) and (extreme gradient boosting) XGBoost models are fine‐tuned using the sparrow search algorithm (SSA), and the optimized models are synergistically integrated to heighten prediction precision for monitored plants. Secondly, based on the predicted power curves of monitored PV power plants, a weight optimization model is presented to optimize the combined weights between unmonitored and monitored power stations. Furthermore, the power generation model from monitored facilities is transplanted to unmonitored plants for power generation estimation. Ultimately, the authors combine the weight optimization and transfer learning model to get more accurate and robust model. Validation across three regional distributed photovoltaic clusters demonstrates a noteworthy improvement in prediction accuracy—20%, 7.5%, and 25% for the respective clusters compared to the existing methods.