Comparative analysis of regression and artificial neural network models for wind speed prediction

In this study, wind speed was modeled by linear regression (LR), nonlinear regression (NLR) and artificial neural network (ANN) methods. A three-layer feedforward artificial neural network structure was constructed and a backpropagation algorithm was used for the training of ANNs. To get a successful simulation, firstly, the correlation coefficients between all of the meteorological variables (wind speed, ambient temperature, atmospheric pressure, relative humidity and rainfall) were calculated taking two variables in turn for each calculation. All independent variables were added to the simple regression model. Then, the method of stepwise multiple regression was applied for the selection of the "best" regression equation (model). Thus, the best independent variables were selected for the LR and NLR models and also used in the input layer of the ANN. The results obtained by all methods were compared to each other. Finally, the ANN method was found to provide better performance than the LR and NLR methods. © 2010 Springer-Verlag