Short-term solar radiation forecasting with a novel image processing-based deep learning approach

— In this study, an image processing-based deep learning approach for short-term forecast of solar radiation has been developed. For this purpose, firstly, cloud movements occurred during the day are tracked and future cloud movements are forecasted, accordingly. Subsequently, using the cloud motion estimation and extraterrestrial solar radiation data, 1-min averaged solar radiation values are estimated for 5-min time horizon. Shi-Tomasi method is employed to determine the feature points to be tracked on the sky images whereas, Lucas-Kanade optical flow method is employed to track the determined feature points on the sequential images. Average cloud velocity and directions are calculated by the help of linear regression method from tracked cloud movements. A hybrid approach including K-means and red/blue ratio is built to classify the pixels of the image whether they are clouds or sky. Finally, short-term solar radiations are estimated using the Long-Short Term Memory (LSTM) deep learning method. The performance of the proposed approach is compared with other methods in the literature. As a result it is concluded that, developed approach outperforms most methods in the literature with RMSE values of 47.576, 53.830, 68.103, and 92.386 for four different days and can be used as an alternative approach.