2019 6th International Conference on Instrumentation, Control, and Automation (ICA)
Bandung, Indonesia. 31 July – 2 August 2019
Wind Speed Forecasting Using Recurrent Neural
Networks and Long Short Term Memory
Fitriana R. Ningsih Esmeralda C. Djamal
Department of Informatics Department of Informatics
Universitas Jenderal Achmad Yani Universitas Jenderal Achmad Yani
Cimahi, Indonesia Cimahi, Indonesia
fitrianarn@gmail.com esmeralda.contessa@lecture.unjani.
ac.id
Abstract— Wind is a natural phenomenon that plays an
essential role in various aspects of human life, including the
spread of pests in plants. This variable is right for regions often
hit by strong winds. The development of machine learning
technology now makes predictions of wind speed to anticipate
future impacts. This study proposes wind speed predictions
using Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) with Long Short Term
Memory (LSTM). The data used was obtained from the
Nganjuk Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), East
Java from 2008 to 2017. The results showed that the use of the
Adam model could provide 92.7% accuracy for training data
and 91.6% for new data.
Keywords— wind speed; forecasting; recurrent neural
networks; LSTM;
I. INTRODUCTION
The wind has several essential roles in various aspects of
human life, such as renewable energy [1], shipping, disaster
due to turbulence intensity [2] and agriculture. One of the
factors that influence agricultural production is wind [3]. For
example, the tomato yellow leaf curl virus is spread due to
climate change [4]. Strong winds can cause danger in
pollinating and infecting pests such as fungal development in
plants. The impact of this is a loss for farmers. Therefore,
some research has been concerned to wind speed prediction
Wind speed forecasting refers to historical climate data or
expertise in physical knowledge. Thus, wind speed prediction
mainly comprises two categories: data-driven model-based
prediction and physical model-based forecast [2]. History of
climate data that can be used to predict wind speed such as
wind speed [5], air temperature and air humidity [1], wind
speed, air humidity, air temperature, and air pressure [6]. Then
other studies predict wind speed by using data from 26 cities
and 12 other parameters besides wind speed for monthly
predictions [7]. The study used data for the last three months
at 10-minute intervals for the prediction of the next hour.
Prediction of meteorological parameters consists of
several aspects. Viewed from the area can use a global area
[8] or specific area [9]. While looking at a time can use short
term or minute to hours [2] [9], daily [10] [11], weeks or
months [7].
The current development makes the machine can learn the
patterns of data. Meteorological data is a sequential or time
series of data which certainly possessed a particular pattern
that can be learned. Some methods that have been used to
predict wind speed include Backpropagation and Support
978-1-7281-0916-9/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE 137
Asep Najmurrakhman
Department of Electrical
Engineering
Universitas Jenderal Achmad Yani
Cimahi, Indonesia
asepnajmu@ieee.org
Vector Regression (SVR) [12], Backpropagation Levenberg-
Marquardt Algorithm [6] Support Vector Machine (SVM)
[13], Long Short-Term Memory Network [14] [15] [16],
Recurrent Neural Networks [17].
Deep learning methods are mainly various neural
networks designed by inspiration from brain neurons, such as
Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) [18] for image
processing. In wind speed prediction, previous research used
deep learning methods such CNN [19], Recurrent Neural
Networks (RNN) [17] [20], Deep Belief Network (DBN) [21].
These methods have been widely used such image processing,
speech recognition, time series data, and natural language
processing. The best way to deal with the time series data such
meteorology data is RNN, which is a general term for a series
of neural networks capable of processing sequence data [16].
RNN encounter great difficulties in dealing with long-term
dependencies with gradients [16][22]. To solve the problem of
long-term dependence, Long-Short Term Memory network is
proposed, and it performed very well in dealing with the issues
of the time series data [22]. LSTM's hidden layer adds three
doors, namely, input, output, and forgotten gates, which is the
key to solving the long-term dependence problem of RNN. In
deep learning, LSTM is usually used to make point prediction
[16].
This study offers a method for predicting monthly wind
speeds using RNN and LSTM. The data used are data on
temperature, humidity, and wind speed obtained from BMKG
Nganjuk district in the period 2008-2017. Prediction is made
to determine the wind speed of one month ahead based on the
previous wind speed data pattern to find out that one of the
four wind speed ranges namely "Quiet" has a variety of less
than 1 knot, "Shade" has a range of one to three knots. Fields
of four to six knots, "soft breeze" have a span of 7-10 knots,
and "Strong" has wind speed more than 10 knots.
II. PROPOSED METHODS
This research used the average wind speed, air
temperature, and air humidity in 2008-2017. The data was
obtained from the Agency for Meteorology, Climatology, and
Geophysics (BMKG) of Nganjuk Regency, East Java
Sawahan Geophysics Station through the BMKG website.
Climate parameter data can be seen in Table I. Unfortunately,
some climate data is lost or unusable, so it needs to be pre-
processed as in Table II.
Pre-process stages of wind speed, air temperature, and
humidity will be carried out including handling lost data,
normalizing each feature in the same range, and converting Month
Climate Parameters
from day to month by looking for maximum values for each to- Date Temperature Humidity
Wind
Speed
climate parameter variable every month. Stages can be seen in
Fig. 1. 2. 29/02/2008 24.7 96.0 9.0
… … … … …
TABLE I. CLIMATE DATA 90. 26.1 95.0 3.0
31/07/2015
Climate Data 100. 31/08/2015 25.4 93.0 2.0
Days
Wind
to- Date Temperature Humidity … … … … …
Speed
1. 01/01/2008 22,4 75 3 119 30/11/2017 25.5 97.0 2.0
2. 02/01/2008 22,5 88 3 120 31/12/2017 26.2 97.0 3.0
… … … … …
2129. 19/05/2014 24,6 88 9999 3) Segmentation with Overlapping
Each data set has a history of one year. The data used are
2130. 20/05/2014 23,3 93 1
five years and ten years of history. Overlap way intends to
… … … … … minimize the effect data discontinue, as shown in Fig. 2.
3651. 30/12/2017 88 1 2 Month

3652. 31/12/2017 91 2 1 1 2 ... 12 13 … 107 108 ... 119 120

Dataset 1 Dataset 108

Dataset 2 Dataset 109

Fig. 2. Data Segmentation

Data Forget Gate
Interpolation
Feature
B. Recurrent Neural Networks
Input Gate
Extraction
RNNs are a model that mimics the way of thinking in
Data Training
Normalization Output Gate
humans by considering information from the past in the
Segmentation
Dense Layer
(Sigmoid)
learning process. RNNs are a modification of the Feedforward
Neural Network by characterizing using feedback from output
Trainig to input. The RNN output depends not only on this input but
Result Wight
also on the previous state of the network that acts as memory
Data [23]. The RNN architecture includes the input layer (xt),
Interpolation
Feature
Prediction of Wind Speeed hidden layer (ht), and output layer (ot), as shown in Fig. 3.
Extraction
Prediction o ot-1 ot ot+1
Normalization Result
Data Test

V V V V
Calm
1-3
Ligt Breeze
4-6
Moderate Breeze
7-10
Strong Breeze
>10 W ht-1 ht ht+1
h
Fig. 1. Wind Speed Forecasting Model W W W W
Unfold

1) Normalization U U U
Climate parameters used are air humidity, temperature, U
and duration of solar radiation per day. The three variables x xt-1 xt xt+1
have different units and ranges of values. Therefore,
normalization in the same field is needed, namely 0-1 as
Fig. 3. Recurrent Neural Networks Architecture
shown (1).
− ( ) (1) Nodes in the hidden layer are fully connected; the output
= of the hidden layer is also the input of the hidden layer next
( ) − ( )
time. U is the weight between the input layer and the hidden
The normalization takes the highest and lowest values on layer, V is the weight between the hidden layer and the output
each row, and this value is used to normalize the numbers in layer, W is the weight between the current hidden layer and
the row. the hidden layer at the next time. Weight w will accept the
previous new state value from the hidden layer minus one
2) Day to Month Conversion
which is input when the state xt and stored in the next hidden
This extraction process is the search for maximum
layer (ht) or other words when the hidden layer is updated. The
values every month from each variable, namely air
hidden layer calculation is seen in (3), and the output
temperature, air humidity, and wind speed so that it becomes
calculation uses the Softmax function, which can be seen in
monthly data as in Table II.
(4).
TABLE II. FEATURE EXTRACTION RESULTS ℎ =( + ℎ ) (3)
Climate Parameters
Month
Wind = ( ℎ) (4)
to- Date Temperature Humidity
Speed
1. 31/01/2008 24.5 91.0 4.0 Although in theory, RNN can overcome long-term
dependencies, the longer the time interval step, the weight

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matrix will continue to convolution with the previous output. at the last point in time t-1 and adding the current input into
This condition will cause a vanishing gradient problem or a the Sigmoid function the value of ot using (10) produces a
situation where the gradient value is minimal so that the value between zero and one to determine how many cells
learning will be prolonged. In the RNNs architecture, there are declare information that needs output. The cell state is first
several units such as Gate Recurrent Unit (GRU), activated in the tanh layer before convolution by , which
Backpropagation Through Time (BPTT) and Long Short will produce a value between 1 and -1. The output information
Term Memory (LSTM). This study used LSTM networks to of ℎ is convolution with the LSTM block at t time which can
overcome the vanishing gradient problem. be calculated using (11)
C. Long Short Term Memory = ( . ℎ , + ) (10)
LSTM is a particular type of Recurrent Neural Network ℎ = ∗ tanh( ) (11)
that is capable of learning long-term dependencies [24]. The
difference between LSTM and traditional RNN neural
networks is that each neuron in LSTM is a memory cell [25]. III. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
LSTM connects previous data information to current neurons. Climate data used from 2008-2017 of Nganjuk city, East
Each neuron contains three gates, namely the gate input, forget Java. The data is divided into two parts, namely 80% for
gate, and gate output which can be seen in Fig. 4 training data and 20% for test data. Training optimization with
variations in weight renewal models, number of training data
ht-1 ht ht+1 sets, and learning rates.
A. Comparing Two Optimization Models
Ct-1 Ct
x + x + x +
tanh tanh tanh

x x ft
it
Ct
x
Ot
x x x
This study used two optimization models of Stochastic
Gradient Descent (SGD) and Adaptive Moment Estimation
sigmoid sigmoid tanh sigmoid sigmoid sig moid tanh sigmoid sig moid sig moid tanh sigmoid
ht-1 ht

Xt-1 Xt Forget
Input gate Output gate
Xt+1 (Adam). Meanwhile, both optimization models use the
learning rate = 0.001, and the number of epochs is 700 to
gate

Fig. 4. Long Short Term Memory Architecture determine the effectiveness of the two optimization methods.
The test results with the two optimization methods can be seen
1) Forget Gate in Table III.
To determine which information will be discarded from
the cell can use (5). By entering the output ht-1 in the previous TABLE III. COMPARING OF OPTIMIZATION MODEL
unit (t-1) and adding the current input (Xt) (t) to the sigmoid Training Data New Data
function S(t) at (6), the value to be generated is between zero No. Model Accuracy Accuracy
and one. This value will double with cell Ct-1 to determine how Loss Loss
(%) (%)
much information will be forgotten or remembered. If the 1. SGD 0.4630 46.87 0.3770 25.00
result is zero, the information is completely ignored, if one
information is retained. Whereas W and b are, respectively, 2. Adam 0.0446 92.70 0.9016 91.66
weight matrices and bias vector parameters.
= ( . ℎ , + ) (5) In this study, the Adam optimization method is better than
SGD with a higher level of accuracy and deviation from the
1 (6) target, which is characterized by a lower loss magnitude
( )= compared to the SGD model. Graphs of SGD and Adam test
1+
results can be seen in Fig. 5 and Fig. 6.
2) Input Gate
This gate determines which new information must be
remembered in cell state. By entering the output (ht-1) in the
previous unit (t-1) and adding the current input (Xt) time (t)
into the sigmoid function S (t) at (5), the value at (7) that is
generated is between zero and one to decide how much new
information in the cell state to remember. At the same time,
the tanh layer receives the Ct selection message that can be
calculated using (8) to be added to the cell state by entering
output (ht-1) at the previous time (t-1) and adding input (Xt) to Fig. 5. Accuracy of SGD and Adam Model
the current time (t).
= ( . ℎ , + ) (7)
= tanh( . ℎ , + ) (8)
Convolution the values of it, and obtained using the
sigmoid function so that the latest information that wants to be
added to the cell state Ct uses (9).
= ∗ + ∗ (9)
Fig. 6. Loss of SGD and Adam Model
3) Output Gate
This gate output determines which information will be
Based on the results of the SGD and Adam optimization
output in the cell state. By entering the previous output ℎ test, which can be seen in Table III, the accuracy value using

139
SGD optimization is 46.87% for training data and 25.00% for TABLE VI. INFLUENCE THE ACCURACY OF THE EPOCH NUMBER
test data. While for testing using Adam optimization reached Data Training Data Testing
an accuracy value of 92.70% for training data and 91.66% for No. Epoch Accuracy Accuracy
test data. As shown in Fg. 5, the graph of the comparison Loss Loss
(%) (%)
accuracy model between the SGD and Adam optimization 1. 100 0.1025 70.83 0.1263 75.00
models indicates that the SGD optimization model has no
change in accuracy at each epoch, while the Adam 2. 200 0.1906 71.87 0.1171 78.32
optimization model looks more volatile. Model loss shown in 3. 300 0.0205 75.00 0.0573 83.00
Fig. 6 shows the Loss number of SGD unchanged, while
Adam's optimization shows a smaller loss. Therefore, it can 4. 400 0.0567 84.41 0.0849 82.67
be concluded that the use of optimization methods can 5. 500 0.0489 85.41 0.0838 83.33
influence the results of training accuracy.
6. 600 0.0543 91.66 0.0419 90.61
B. Influence of Data History Number
7. 700 0.0446 92.70 0.9016 91.66
This study predicts wind speed with the amount of data
for the past ten years. However, to find out how much force
the amount of data is trained, so testing the amount of data in Table VI shows the difference in the accuracy results
the form of datasets where the data processed is in the way of obtained based on the number of epochs. Experiments with
daily data. The training process was carried out using Adam 100 epochs had the lowest accuracy of 70.83% for training
optimization with a learning rate of 0.001 and epochs of 200. data and 75.00% for test data. Meanwhile, trials with a total of
Several configurations to be tested can be seen in Table IV, 700 epochs have the highest accuracy of 92.70% for training
and the results can be seen in Table V. data and 91.66% for test data. As shown in Fig. 7, the value of
correctness increases with the increase in the number of
TABLE IV. CONFIGURATION OF RNN

Output
No. Layer Epoch Testing
Ten years Five years 100.00
ACCURACY

1. Dataset 120 60
Input 50.00
2. 64 64
Layer
Hidden
2. 64 64
Layer
0.00
3. Dropout 0.2 0.2 0 200 400 600
4. Dense 13 13 EPOCH
Output Data Training Data Testing
5. 1 1
layer
Fig. 7. Model of Epoch
TABLE V. RNN CONFIGURATION TESTING
epochs. This condition can happen because as the epoch
Data Training New Testing increases, more weight changes in the Neural Network.
No. Dataset
Loss
Accuracy
Loss
Accuracy Therefore, it can be concluded that the number of epochs can
(%) (%) affect the results of the accuracy obtained.
1. 120 0.0446 92.70 0.9016 91.66
IV. CONCLUSION
2. 60 0.0741 85.71 0.1764 83.33
This study has predicted wind speed using Recurrent
Neural Networks (RNN) with Long Short Term Memory
Table V shows the difference in the results of accuracy (LSTM). The wind speed prediction system consists of three
obtained based on the number of datasets. Experiments with stages. The first stage is preprocessing data consisting of data
120 datasets or 10 years of data have an accuracy of 92.70% interpolation, extraction, normalization, and segmentation.
for training data and 91.66% for test data. Whereas, trials with The second stage is the process of training data using RNN
60 datasets or data for five years have an accuracy of 85.71% with LSTM; then the third stage is the testing process. The
for training data and 83.33% for test data. So it can be results of this study indicate that wind speed predictions using
concluded that the value of accuracy decreases with the RNN get outstanding results using Adam optimization with a
reduced number of datasets that are trained and can affect the learning rate value of 0.001 obtaining accuracy for training
results of the accuracy obtained. data of 92.70% and test data of 91.66%. Predictions using data
C. Amount of Epoch Testing over the past ten years have better results than predictions
made using 5-year data. Therefore, it can be concluded that
This study used the number of epochs as many as 700 with
the optimization model, the amount of data, and the number
excellent results using learning rate 0.001 and the Adam
of epochs used for the training process can influence the
optimization model. But to find out how much influence the
results of the accuracy obtained.
amount of epochs in training data can be seen in Table VI.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Thanks to Lembaga Penelitian dan Pengabdian Kepada
Masyarakat, Universitas Jenderal Achmad Yani for the
financial support provided this research in 2019.

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