An interpretable Bayesian deep learning-based approach for sustainable clean energy

Abstract

AbstractSustainable Development Goal 7 is dedicated to ensuring access to clean and affordable energy that can be utilized in various applications. Solar panels (SP) are utilized to convert sunlight into electricity, acting as a renewable energy source. It is important to keep SP clean to obtain the required performance, as the accumulation of snow and dust on SP greatly affects the amount of electricity generated. On the other hand, excessive cleaning has some detrimental effects on the SP, therefore cleaning should only be done when necessary and not on a regular basis. Consequently, it is critical to determine whether the cleaning procedure is necessary by automatically detecting the presence of dust or snow on the panels while avoiding inaccurate predictions. Research efforts have been made to detect the presence of dust and snow on SP, but most of the proposed methods do not guarantee accurate detection results. This paper proposes an accurate, reliable, and interpretable approach called Solar-OBNet. The proposed Solar-OBNet can detect dusty SP and snow-covered SP very efficiently and be used in conjunction with the methods used to clean SP. The proposed Solar-OBNet is based on a Bayesian convolutional neural network, which enables it to express the amount of confidence in its predictions. Two measurements are used to estimate the uncertainty in the outcomes of the proposed Solar-OBNet, namely predictive entropy and standard deviation. The proposed Solar-OBNet can express confidence in the correct predictions by showing low values for predictive entropy and standard deviation. The proposed Solar-OBNet can also give an uncertainty warning in the case of erroneous predictions by showing high values of predictive entropy and standard deviation. The proposed Solar-OBNet’s efficacy was verified by interpreting its results using a method called Weighted Gradient-Directed Class Activation Mapping (Grad-CAM). The proposed Solar-OBNet has achieved a balanced accuracy of 94.07% and an average specificity 95.83%, outperforming other comparable methods.