Adaptive transfer learning in deep neural networks: Wind power prediction using knowledge transfer from region to region and between different task domains

Transfer learning (TL) in deep neural networks is gaining importance because, in most of the applications, the labeling of data is costly and time consuming. Additionally, TL also provides an effective weight initialization strategy for deep neural networks. This paper introduces the idea of adaptive TL in deep neural networks (ATL‐DNN) for wind power prediction. Specifically, we show in case of wind power prediction that adaptive TL of the deep neural networks system can be adaptively modified as regards training on a different wind farm is concerned. The proposed ATL‐DNN technique is tested for short‐term wind power prediction, where continuously arriving information has to be exploited. Adaptive TL not only helps in providing good weight initialization, but also in utilizing the incoming data for effective learning. Additionally, the proposed ATL‐DNN technique is shown to transfer knowledge between different task domains (wind power to wind speed prediction) and from one region to another region. The simulation results show that the proposed ATL‐DNN technique achieves average values of 0.0637, 0.0986, and 0.0984 for the mean absolute error, root mean squared error, and standard deviation error, respectively.