A Trapezoid Attention Mechanism for Power Generation and Consumption Forecasting

Effective operation of smart grids relies on accurate forecasting models for renewable power generation (RPG) and power consumption. The intermittent and unpredictable nature of RPG, coupled with diverse consumption patterns, underscores the importance of robust forecasting approaches. Existing models often employ stacked layers, integrating direct features into fully connected layers, yielding suboptimal results with limited generalization capabilities. Addressing these limitations, we propose a novel two-stream architecture for RPG and power consumption forecasting. The first stream leverages dilated causal convolutional layers to capture intricate patterns, while the second stream focuses on temporal information extraction. Importantly, we fine-tune the hyperparameters of both streams using Bayesian algorithms to optimize the learning process. The outputs from these two streams are then intelligently combined and channeled into our innovative trapezoid attention module (TAM) for feature refinement, resulting in superior pattern representation. The TAM incorporates three distinct dimensions (spatial, temporal, and spatiotemporal) and enriches feature maps by integrating a skip connection from the pre-TAM features. The output post-TAM features are then employed for final forecasting. Our approach showcases remarkable performance in short-term forecasting across a spectrum of datasets, including RPG, regional, residential, and industrial power consumption. By addressing the shortcomings of existing forecasting models, our research contributes to the advancement of smart grid technologies, ensuring more reliable and efficient energy management.