Forecasting Energy Availability in Local Energy Communities via LSTM Federated Learning

Abstract: Local Energy Communities are emerging as crucial players in the landscape of sustainable development. A significant challenge for these communities is achieving self-sufficiency through effective management of the balance between energy production and consumption. To meet this challenge, it is essential to develop and implement forecasting models that deliver accurate predictions, which can then be utilized by optimization and planning algorithms. However, the application of forecasting solutions is often hindered by privacy constrains and regulations as the users participating in the Local Energy Community can be (rightfully) reluctant sharing their consumption patterns with others. In this context, the use of Federated Learning (FL) can be a viable solution as it allows to create a forecasting model without the need to share privacy sensitive information among the users. In this study, we demonstrate how FL and long short-term memory (LSTM) networks can be employed to achieve this objective, highlighting the trade-off between data sharing and forecasting accuracy.