Enhanced integration of renewable energy and smart grid efficiency with data-driven solar forecasting employing PCA and machine learning

A significant obstacle to preserving grid stability and incorporating renewable energy into smart grids is variations in solar irradiation. To improve solar power management's dependability, this research proposes a 
short-term solar forecasting framework powered by AI. Multiple machine learning models, such as long short-term memory (LSTM), random forest (RF), gradient boosting (GB), AdaBoost, neural networks (NN), K-Nearest 
neighbor (KNN), and linear regression (LR), are integrated into the suggested system, which also uses principal component analysis (PCA) for dimensionality reduction. The Abiod Sid Cheikh station in Algeria (2019-2021) provided real-world data for the model's validation. With a two-hour ahead RMSE of 0.557 kW/m², AdaBoost had the most accuracy, whereas LR had the lowest, at 0.510 kW/m². In addition to increasing computing 
efficiency, PCA preserved 99.3% of the data volatility. In addition to increasing computing efficiency, PCA preserved 99.3% of the data volatility. These findings highlight the efficiency of hybrid AI models based on PCA for accurate forecasting, which is crucial for smart grid stability.