Solar Photovoltaic Generation Forecasting: A Review of Artificial Intelligence Approaches
TL;DR
The technical synthesis finds that classical machine learning remains competitive for day-ahead forecasting with well-structured numerical weather prediction inputs, that convolutional neural network–long short-term memory (CNN-LSTM) hybrids dominate the deep-learning literature, and that graph-based and transformer architectures address multi-site and multi-horizon forecasting, respectively.
Abstract
The rapid global expansion of solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity has increased the operational need for accurate generation forecasting to support grid balancing, dispatch, and market participation. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) methods now dominate this research area, but the resulting literature is large and methodologically fragmented, making it difficult to establish which methods are used, what data they require, and where the principal gaps lie. This paper combines a bibliometric analysis of 3111 records retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection (2010–2026) with a technical synthesis of 27 highly cited studies published from 2022 onward, combining the most highly cited works with targeted additions from 2024–2025 covering specific methodological gaps. The bibliometric analysis shows exponential growth in annual output, from three publications in 2010 to 609 in 2025, with keyword evolution tracing a clear methodological trajectory from classical and fuzzy-logic approaches, through shallow and deep neural networks, to transformer- and attention-based architectures since 2023. The technical synthesis finds that classical machine learning remains competitive for day-ahead forecasting with well-structured numerical weather prediction inputs, that convolutional neural network–long short-term memory (CNN-LSTM) hybrids dominate the deep-learning literature, and that graph-based and transformer architectures address multi-site and multi-horizon forecasting, respectively. A comparison of reported results shows that absolute error metrics are not directly comparable across studies due to heterogeneous datasets, metrics, temporal resolutions, and climates, although relative improvements within controlled comparisons are directionally consistent. Seven research gaps are identified, including the absence of standardized benchmarks, limited public dataset availability, weak cross-region generalization, and underdeveloped uncertainty quantification.
