Power prediction is important not only for the smooth and economic operation of a combined cycle power plant (CCPP) but also to avoid technical issues such as power outages. In this work, we propose to utilize machine learning algorithms to predict the hourly-based electrical power generated by a CCPP. For this, the generated power is considered a function of four fundamental parameters which are relative humidity, atmospheric pressure, ambient temperature, and exhaust vacuum. The measurements of these parameters and their yielded output power are used to train and test the machine learning models. The dataset for the proposed research is gathered over a period of six years and taken from a standard and publicly available machine learning repository. The utilized machine algorithms are
K
-nearest neighbors (KNN), gradient-boosted regression tree (GBRT), linear regression (LR), artificial neural network (ANN), and deep neural network (DNN). We report state-of-the-art performance where GBRT outperforms not only the utilized algorithms but also all the previous methods on the given CCPP dataset. It achieves the minimum values of root mean square error (RMSE) of 2.58 and absolute error (AE) of 1.85.
Modeling and Optimization of NOX Emission in a Coal-fired Power Plant using Advanced Machine Learning Methods