A new wind power model using the lightning search algorithm

Wind power as a source of renewable energy with low pollution has grown substantially in recent years. Being able to accurately predict the generated power of wind plants is very important for proper operation of the power system. This study presents a novel optimization algorithm for determining the optimal value of the weighting factor in the wind power model, the algorithm known as the lightning search algorithm (LSA) was developed from the natural occurrence of lightning formed by thunderstorms. The model was tested using data collected from the hourly wind power output of the Zabol wind plant in Iran. The obtained wind power model from the algorithm presented an accurate fit for the entire range of the actual data and gave a lower error in comparison with the results obtained using bee colony optimization (BCO) or particle swarm optimization (PSO).