Multimodal Learning Techniques for Time Series Forecasting in Renewable Energy Systems: A Comprehensive Survey

<p dir="ltr">Renewable energy systems, such as solar, wind, and hybrid sources, present complex forecasting challenges due to their stochastic and weather-dependent nature. The growing availability of heterogeneous and complementary data modalities including meteorological forecasts,...

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Main Author: Majdi Mansouri (16869885) (author)
Other Authors: Khadija Attouri (18024307) (author), Shady S. Refaat (16864269) (author)
Published: 2025
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author Majdi Mansouri (16869885)
author2 Khadija Attouri (18024307)
Shady S. Refaat (16864269)
author2_role author
author
author_facet Majdi Mansouri (16869885)
Khadija Attouri (18024307)
Shady S. Refaat (16864269)
author_role author
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Majdi Mansouri (16869885)
Khadija Attouri (18024307)
Shady S. Refaat (16864269)
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2025-09-05T06:00:00Z
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv 10.1109/access.2025.3602914
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Multimodal_Learning_Techniques_for_Time_Series_Forecasting_in_Renewable_Energy_Systems_A_Comprehensive_Survey/31240111
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv CC BY 4.0
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Engineering
Electrical engineering
Information and computing sciences
Artificial intelligence
Multimodal learning
renewable energy forecasting
time series forecasting
data fusion
deep learning
benchmark data sets
forecast uncertainty
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Multimodal Learning Techniques for Time Series Forecasting in Renewable Energy Systems: A Comprehensive Survey
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv Text
Journal contribution
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
text
contribution to journal
description <p dir="ltr">Renewable energy systems, such as solar, wind, and hybrid sources, present complex forecasting challenges due to their stochastic and weather-dependent nature. The growing availability of heterogeneous and complementary data modalities including meteorological forecasts, satellite imagery, numerical sensor streams, and grid interaction logs has motivated the application of multimodal learning techniques to improve time series forecasting accuracy. Unlike previous surveys that either focused narrowly on single-modality forecasting or provided only high-level overviews, this paper offers a focused and technically grounded review of multimodal learning strategies specific to renewable energy forecasting. We categorize and compare key fusion strategies (early, late, hybrid), analyze deep model architectures (e.g., co-attention and transformer-based fusion), and discuss deployment-related challenges such as data alignment, modality missingness, and interpretability. Then, this paper reviews multimodal learning techniques based on four main aspects, i.e., classify fusion techniques, examine model architectures, showcase practical application scenarios, and summarize benchmark datasets. Finally, the paper identifies existing research gaps and outlines promising future directions in this rapidly evolving field, such as self-supervised multimodal learning and adaptive fusion under uncertainty.</p><h2 dir="ltr">Other Information</h2><p dir="ltr">Published in: IEEE Access<br>License: <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en" target="_blank">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</a><br>See article on publisher's website: <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/access.2025.3602914" target="_blank">https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/access.2025.3602914</a></p>
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
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identifier_str_mv 10.1109/access.2025.3602914
network_acronym_str Manara2
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oai_identifier_str oai:figshare.com:article/31240111
publishDate 2025
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spelling Multimodal Learning Techniques for Time Series Forecasting in Renewable Energy Systems: A Comprehensive SurveyMajdi Mansouri (16869885)Khadija Attouri (18024307)Shady S. Refaat (16864269)EngineeringElectrical engineeringInformation and computing sciencesArtificial intelligenceMultimodal learningrenewable energy forecastingtime series forecastingdata fusiondeep learningbenchmark data setsforecast uncertainty<p dir="ltr">Renewable energy systems, such as solar, wind, and hybrid sources, present complex forecasting challenges due to their stochastic and weather-dependent nature. The growing availability of heterogeneous and complementary data modalities including meteorological forecasts, satellite imagery, numerical sensor streams, and grid interaction logs has motivated the application of multimodal learning techniques to improve time series forecasting accuracy. Unlike previous surveys that either focused narrowly on single-modality forecasting or provided only high-level overviews, this paper offers a focused and technically grounded review of multimodal learning strategies specific to renewable energy forecasting. We categorize and compare key fusion strategies (early, late, hybrid), analyze deep model architectures (e.g., co-attention and transformer-based fusion), and discuss deployment-related challenges such as data alignment, modality missingness, and interpretability. Then, this paper reviews multimodal learning techniques based on four main aspects, i.e., classify fusion techniques, examine model architectures, showcase practical application scenarios, and summarize benchmark datasets. Finally, the paper identifies existing research gaps and outlines promising future directions in this rapidly evolving field, such as self-supervised multimodal learning and adaptive fusion under uncertainty.</p><h2 dir="ltr">Other Information</h2><p dir="ltr">Published in: IEEE Access<br>License: <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en" target="_blank">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</a><br>See article on publisher's website: <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/access.2025.3602914" target="_blank">https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/access.2025.3602914</a></p>2025-09-05T06:00:00ZTextJournal contributioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersiontextcontribution to journal10.1109/access.2025.3602914https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Multimodal_Learning_Techniques_for_Time_Series_Forecasting_in_Renewable_Energy_Systems_A_Comprehensive_Survey/31240111CC BY 4.0info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessoai:figshare.com:article/312401112025-09-05T06:00:00Z
spellingShingle Multimodal Learning Techniques for Time Series Forecasting in Renewable Energy Systems: A Comprehensive Survey
Majdi Mansouri (16869885)
Engineering
Electrical engineering
Information and computing sciences
Artificial intelligence
Multimodal learning
renewable energy forecasting
time series forecasting
data fusion
deep learning
benchmark data sets
forecast uncertainty
status_str publishedVersion
title Multimodal Learning Techniques for Time Series Forecasting in Renewable Energy Systems: A Comprehensive Survey
title_full Multimodal Learning Techniques for Time Series Forecasting in Renewable Energy Systems: A Comprehensive Survey
title_fullStr Multimodal Learning Techniques for Time Series Forecasting in Renewable Energy Systems: A Comprehensive Survey
title_full_unstemmed Multimodal Learning Techniques for Time Series Forecasting in Renewable Energy Systems: A Comprehensive Survey
title_short Multimodal Learning Techniques for Time Series Forecasting in Renewable Energy Systems: A Comprehensive Survey
title_sort Multimodal Learning Techniques for Time Series Forecasting in Renewable Energy Systems: A Comprehensive Survey
topic Engineering
Electrical engineering
Information and computing sciences
Artificial intelligence
Multimodal learning
renewable energy forecasting
time series forecasting
data fusion
deep learning
benchmark data sets
forecast uncertainty