Interval Prediction of Photovoltaic Power Using Improved NARX Network and Density Peak Clustering Based on Kernel Mahalanobis Distance

Photovoltaic (PV) power forecasting can provide strong support for the safe operation of the power system. Existing forecasting methods are ineffective for grid scheduling decisions or risk analysis. The novel multicluster interval prediction method is proposed to consider the volatility and randomness of PV power output. First, this method utilizes the sparse autoencoder (SAE) and Bayesian regularized NARX network (BRNARX) for point forecasting of PV power. Second, density peak clustering improved by kernel Mahalanobis distance (KMDDPC) is applied to classify the dataset into multiple clusters, including forecasting error and meteorological factors. Finally, the joint probability density is established by multivariate kernel density estimation (MKDE) to accomplish the PV power interval prediction. The proposed hybrid method is applied for the interval prediction of PV power at Yulara, Australia. Comparative research of point forecasting is implemented to evaluate the machine learning and deep learning methods, with the proposed SAE-BRNARX under four different periods. Results shows that the average values of nRMSE, MRE, nMAE, and R2 for the four periods are 4.45%, 0.90%, −0.15%, 3.39%, and 95.93%, respectively. Moreover, the results of interval prediction obtained by the other interval prediction approaches are compared with the proposed KMDDPC-MKDE. It shows that the average values of PICP, PINAW, ACE, and nMPICD for four periods are 93.93%, 9.50%, 3.93%, and 7.10% at 90% confidence level, respectively. Outcomes demonstrate that the proposed method can obtain more accuracy, a higher coverage rate, narrower average bandwidth, and a closer distance between the middle of interval and actual value than other methods.