Power Generation Prediction for Photovoltaic System of Hose-Drawn Traveler Based on Machine Learning Models

A photovoltaic (PV)-powered electric motor is used for hose-drawn traveler driving instead of a water turbine to achieve high transmission efficiency. PV power generation (PVPG) is affected by different meteorological conditions, resulting in different power generation of PV panels for a hose-drawn traveler. In the above situation, the hose-drawn traveler may experience deficit power generation. The reasonable determination of the PV panel capacity is crucial. Predicting the PVPG is a prerequisite for the reasonable determination of the PV panel capacity. Therefore, it is essential to develop a method for accurately predicting PVPG. Extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) is currently an outstanding machine learning model for prediction performance, but its hyperparameters are difficult to set. Thus, the XGBoost model based on particle swarm optimization (PSO-XGBoost) is applied for PV power prediction in this study. The PSO algorithm is introduced to optimize hyperparameters in XGBoost model. The meteorological data are segmented into four seasons to develop tailored prediction models, ensuring accurate prediction of PVPG in four seasons for hose-drawn travelers. The input variables of the models include solar irradiance, time, and ambient temperature. The prediction accuracy and stability of the model is then assessed statistically. The predictive accuracy and stability of PV power prediction by the PSO-XGBoost model are higher compared to the XGBoost model. Finally, application of the PSO-XGBoost model is implemented based on meteorological data.