Wind speed forecasting in three different regions of Mexico, using a hybrid ARIMA-ANN model

In this paper the wind speed forecasting in the Isla de Cedros in Baja California, in the Cerro de la Virgen in Zacatecas and in Holbox in Quintana Roo is presented. The time series utilized are average hourly wind speed data obtained directly from the measurements realized in the different sites during about one month. In order to do wind speed forecasting Hybrid models consisting of Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) models and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models were developed. The ARIMA models were first used to do the wind speed forecasting of the time series and then with the obtained errors ANN were built taking into account the nonlinear tendencies that the ARIMA technique could not identify, reducing with this the final errors. Once the Hybrid models were developed 48 data out of sample for each one of the sites were used to do the wind speed forecasting and the results were compared with the ARIMA and the ANN models working separately. Statistical error measures such as the mean error (ME), the mean square error (MSE) and the mean absolute error (MAE) were calculated to compare the three methods. The results showed that the Hybrid models predict the wind velocities with a higher accuracy than the ARIMA and ANN models in the three examined sites. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.