Probabilistic Wind Park Power Prediction using Bayesian Deep Learning and Generative Adversarial Networks

Abstract

The rapid depletion of fossil-based energy supplies, along with the growing reliance on renewable resources, has placed supreme importance on the predictability of renewables. Research focusing on wind park power modelling has mainly been concerned with point estimators, while most probabilistic studies have been reserved for forecasting. In this paper, a few different approaches to estimate probability distributions for individual turbine powers in a real off-shore wind farm were studied. Two variational Bayesian inference models were used, one employing a multilayered perceptron and another a graph neural network (GNN) architecture. Furthermore, generative adversarial networks (GAN) have recently been proposed as Bayesian models and was here investigated as a novel area of research. The results showed that the two Bayesian models outperformed the GAN model with regards to mean absolute errors (MAE), with the GNN architecture yielding the best results. The GAN on the other hand, seemed potentially better at generating diverse distributions. Standard deviations of the predicted distributions were found to have a positive correlation with MAEs, indicating that the models could correctly provide estimates on the confidence associated with particular predictions.