Wind speed forecasting at different time scales: a non parametric approach

Abstract: The prediction of wind speed is one of the most important aspects when dealing with renewable energy. In this paper we show a new nonparametric model, based on semi-Markov chains, to predict wind speed. Particularly we use an indexed semi-Markov model, that reproduces accurately the statistical behavior of wind speed, to forecast wind speed one step ahead for different time scales and for very long time horizon maintaining the goodness of prediction. In order to check the main features of the model we show, as indicator of goodness, the root mean square error between real data and predicted ones and we compare our forecasting results with those of a persistence model.