The Use of Evolutionary Algorithms in the Modelling of Diffuse Radiation in Terms of Simulating the Energy Efficiency of Photovoltaic Systems

Abstract

In light of the rapidly growing number of photovoltaic micro-grids, the modelling of their short-term power yields based on meteorological measurements is increasing in significance. This requires the knowledge of total and diffuse instantaneous solar radiation; however, most meteorological stations conduct actinometric measurements only with regard to total solar radiation, especially on a minute scale. This paper contains an analysis of the currently used PV cell mathematical model and suggests its modification aimed at calculating PV cell power with satisfactory accuracy, without the knowledge of diffuse solar radiation. Three function families were proposed to approximate the relationship between diffuse irradiance and the total and theoretical total irradiance variance for a cloudless sky. A program has been implemented to identify functions from the aforementioned function families. It leverages an evolution strategy algorithm and a fitness function based on the least-squares point method. It was employed to calculate the desired functions based on actual measurement data. The outcome was the sought-after dependence that enables predicting diffuse irradiance based on more frequently available measurement data.