Wind speed forecasting based on wavelet decomposition and wavelet neural networks optimized by the Cuckoo search algorithm

Wind speed forecasting is of great importance for wind farm management and plays an important role in grid integration. Wind speed is volatile in nature and therefore it is difficult to predict with a single model. In this study, three hybrid multi-step wind speed forecasting models are developed and compared — with each other and with earlier proposed wind speed forecasting models. The three models are based on wavelet decomposition (WD), the Cuckoo search (CS) optimization algorithm, and a wavelet neural network (WNN). They are referred to as CS-WD-ANN (artificial neural network), CS-WNN, and CS-WD-WNN, respectively. Wind speed data from two wind farms located in Shandong, eastern China, are used in this study. The simulation result indicates that CS-WD-WNN outperforms the other two models, with minimum statistical errors. Comparison with earlier models shows that CS-WD-WNN still performs best, with the smallest statistical errors. The employment of the CS optimization algorithm in the models shows improvement compared with the earlier models.