A distributed photovoltaic short-term power forecasting model based on lightweight AI for edge computing

Abstract In recent years, an immense amount of distributed photovoltaics are integrated into low-voltage distribution network, producing a substantial volume of operational data. The centralized cloud data center cannot process massive amounts of data precisely and promptly. Therefore, the operational status of distributed photovoltaic systems in low-voltage distribution network becomes difficult to predict. However, edge computing in the distribution network enables local data processing to improve the forecasting service’s real-time reliability. In this regard, this paper proposes a distributed photovoltaic short-term power forecasting model based on lightweight AI algorithms. Firstly, based on the Pearson correlation coefficient method, an analysis is conducted on the historical operational data in the network to extract important meteorological features correlated with the photovoltaic power output. Secondly, a distributed photovoltaic power forecasting model for the distribution network is constructed based on the Xception and attention mechanism. Finally, the model is trained using pruning, which removes redundant parts of the model, resulting in a compact and efficient forecasting model. By validating real-world datasets, the results demonstrate that the model presented in this article has a smaller size and higher forecasting accuracy than other state-of-the-art forecasting models.