2014 First International Conference on Systems Informatics, Modelling and Simulation

Application of Neural Networks Technique

in Renewable Energy Systems
Lamine Thiaw, Gustave Sow, Salif Fall
Renewable Energy Laboratory, Ecole Superieure Polytechnique / Universite Cheikh Anta Diop
Dakar, Senegal
Email: lamine.thiaw.sn@ieee.org
gustave.sow@ucad.edu.sn
salif.fall@ucad.edu.sn

An ANN can be dened as a complex network composed of interconnected elementary processing units (neurons).
Neurons are organized into layers and can be connected in
different ways. The topology of connections between neurons
determines the network architecture and is related to the the
problem to be solved (non linear regression, classication,
optimization, etc.). The network comprises parameters which
are determined through a leaning process. There are various
types of ANN. Multi Layer Perceptron (MLP) are feedforward
neural networks commonly used in problems of nonlinear
regression. An MLP network comprises an input layer, one
or more hidden layers and an output layer. The neurons of
a hidden layer receive information from the neurons of the
previous hidden layer or from the inputs, and are connected
to the neurons of the next layer or to neurons of the output
layer. There is no connection between the neurons of the same
layer. Each neuron of the output layer performs a nonlinear
function of the inputs of the network (see [3], [4], [5] and [6]).
An application of using neural networks in wind energy
systems is illustrated in [7] where a hybrid neural network
approach, comprising a Self Organizing Map (SOM) and a
Radial Basis Function (RBF) neural network, is used to predict
wind speed automatically. The approach enables wind speed
prediction with less errors.
In [8], a recurrent neural network is used for the control
of a battery energy storage system accounting state of charge
(SOC) and terminal voltage.
In the present work, a simple method of designing an
ANN based controller for maximum power point tracking
of photovoltaic generators is presented. The ANN technique
is also used to more accurately determine the wind speed
distribution law of a site, enabling to better assess wind energy
potential and wind generators performances.
The paper is structured as follows: section II presents
the design method of neural controller for Maximum Power
Point Tracking of PV Generators; section III describes the
implementation of ANN technique for wind energy ressource
assessment; the last part presents the results and discussion.

AbstractArticial Intelligence (AI) techniques are increasingly used in various area due to their capability of handling
complex systems specicities. Among the techniques of AI,
Articial Neural Networks (ANN) technique plays an important
role. This technique is used in this work to perform important
tasks encountered in Photovoltaic systems and in Wind Energy
Systems: a) Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) of Photovoltaic Generators; b) and wind energy resource assessment.
It is shown how a neural network technique can be used to
design an MPPT controller for photovoltaic generators, enabling
to improve their efciency, and how it is possible to assess the
available and recoverable wind energy potential of a site, by
means of nding an adequate distribution law of the wind speeds
based on a neural model. The proposed methods are illustrated
by simulation results which exhibit the advantages of using ANN
techniques in Renewable Energy Systems.
KeywordsPhotovoltaic Systems; Wind Energy Systems; Neural
networks

I. I NTRODUCTION
Energy is an unavoidable vector of development for all
countries. In Senegal, fossil energy consumption accounts for
38% of the total consumption of energy, which corresponds
to about 54% of the country export incomes. However a
great deal of efforts are made today for the development of
renewable energies such as photovoltaic solar energy, wind
energy, biomass, bio-fuels etc. In the eld of electrical energy
output, photovoltaic solar energy and wind energy are increasingly used. Wind potential is not high enough in Senegal (an
average wind speed of 4 m/s to 5 m/s along the northeast
coastal region from Dakar to St Louis, the windiest area)
and is unequally distributed throughout the national territory.
Concerning the solar energy potential, its estimated to an
average of 5.4 kW h/m2 /d over all the national territory, with
an average duration of 8 h/d, corresponding to a daily average
irradiance of 675 W/m2 .
The development of renewable energies requires the use
of sophisticated techniques for an accurate estimation of the
available energy potential and an effective control of systems
operation. In the last years, Articial Intelligence (AI) techniques are increasingly used in various area( [1] and [2]). They
enable to study complex systems without any knowledge of
the exact relations governing their operation. They are able
to handle noisy and incomplete data, and once trained, allow
performing as complex tasks as prediction, modeling, identication, optimization, forecasting and control. Among the
various techniques of AI, Articial Neural Networks (ANN)
are frequently used.
978-0-7695-5198-2/14 $31.00 2014 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/SIMS.2014.12

II. I MPLEMENTATION OF N EURAL N ETWORK T ECHNIQUE

FOR M AXIMUM P OWER P OINT T RACKING OF PV
G ENERATORS
PV generators efciency is known to be low and its
maximum value depends on operating conditions (irradiation,
6

(a)

(b)
Fig. 2. Principle of duty cycle generation using the PV generator I-V
characteristic.

Fig. 1. Models of PV generator: (a) Neural model; (b) Neural model which
gives the maximum power point.

temperature and load values). To extract the maximum available energy, PV generators must operate at their maximum
power point at any time, which requires a system control for
tracking that point. Various techniques of Maximum Power
Point Tracking (MPPT) have been investigated. Among these
techniques, neural network based controllers are very often
referred in the literature.
A. Maximum Power Point Tracking Principles
A Photovoltaic Generator can operate at various points
depending on its output voltage or delivered current. For
a given solar irradiation and ambiant temperature, there is
one operating point for which a maximum power can be
extracted from the generator. This is the optimal operating
point dened by the optimal voltage and current values, Vopt
and Iopt respectively. The principle of the maximum Power
Point Tracking (MPPT) is to control the output voltage and
the current delivered by the photovoltaic generator so that
at any time, they are as close as possible to their optimal
values. An MPPT algorithm is used to generate the appropriate
control signal for a converter connected to the PV generator.
Many algorithms exist for MPPT: Perturb and Observe Method
(P&O), Incremental Conductance (IncCond), Hill Climpbing
Method, Neural Networks based approach (see [9], [10], and
[11]).

Fig. 3. A stand-alone PV system using the neural network based controller

for MPPT

A neural model of the PV generator can be developed to

enable nding the optimal operating point starting from Isc(m)
and Voc(m) . For a given set of these parameters, it is easy to
compute the point corresponding to the maximum generated
power from the I-V curve. The neural model is then trained
with Isc(m) and Voc(m) as inputs and optimal values of PV
generator voltage and current (Vpv(opt) and Ipv(opt) ) as outputs
(see gure 1-b).
C. Design of a Neural Network Controller for MPPT
The purpose of the neural controller is to generate for the
converter connected to the PV generator a control signal which
enables the input voltage to be set as close as possible to the
PV generator optimal voltage, starting from Isc(m) and Voc(m)
values obtained from monitoring cells. For each set of Isc(m)
and Voc(m) , the optimal voltage value Vpv(opt) is computed
using the I V characteristic of the PV generator. This value
of Vpv(opt) is then used with the converter output voltage
value (Vout ) to compute the control signal. For a buck DC-DC
converter functioning in a continuous conduction mode, the
duty cycle of the control signal is expressed by the relation (1).

B. Neural Model of a PV generator

The neural model of a PV generator can be represented as
shown in gure 1-a where S designates the solar radiation, T
the PV cells temperature, Vpv and Ipv the PV generator output
voltage and delivered current respectively.
The main advantage of the neural model is that there is no
need to know the exact relation between inputs and outputs.
Additionally, in the case of PV generator modeling, input data
such as solar radiation and cell temperature may be replaced
by their equivalent electrical values obtained from measuring
devices.
It is known that for PV cells, solar radiation mainly inuences the short-circuit current while ambient temperature (or
cell temperature) inuences the open circuit-voltage. Thats
why, instead of using expensive devices to sense real values
of solar radiation and cell temperature, two PV cells (or two
small PV panels) can be used. The rst one will be shortcircuited and will give information about the solar radiation
(Isc(m) ). The second one is in open circuit mode and will give
information about cell temperature (Voc(m) ). For various load
values, the I V characteristics of the PV generator can be
obtained for each set of Isc(m) and Voc(m) of monitoring cells.

Dopt =

Vout
Vpv(opt)

(1)

The calculation of the duty cycle can be rened if it is necessary to take into account the imperfections of the system or if
another converter is used. To generate a convenient database
for the neural model training, for each value of Vpv(opt) in
equation (1), various duty cycle values are calculated using
values of Vout randomly chosen between desired minimal and
maximal values of the output voltage.
Figure 2 shows the principle of generation the duty cycle
values needed for the neural controller training. The trained
neural controller is used as indicated in gure 3 for a stand
alone PV system.

III. I MPLEMENTATION OF A N EURAL N ETWORKS

T ECHNIQUE FOR W IND E NERGY R ESSOURCE A SSESSMENT

The amount of energy a wind generator would produce on

a given site during the period T can be assessed from the
characteristics P = P (v) and the wind speed distribution law
on the site by the relation (5):
V

c
T
f (v) P (v) dv
(5)
EgpT =
1000

The interest towards renewable energies implies a good

assessment of the available wind energy potential. The wind
potential assessment of a site requires the knowledge of the
distribution law of the wind speed measured on the site. The
statistical treatment of these measurements makes it possible
to have a discrete distribution law. However, a more accurate
analysis of the wind potential needs obtaining a continuous
distribution law. The Weibull or Rayleigh models are often
used. The approach consists in assimilating the distribution law
to one of these models and to determine the model parameters
so that it gets closest to the discrete law achieved by the
statistical treatment of the wind speed measurements.
Determining a distribution law for the speeds can be considered as a non linear regression problem, in which the
distribution law chosen (Weibull or Rayleigh) is identied so
as to get nearer the discrete law ( [12], [13], [14]). As regards
function approximation, however, the techniques based on the
articial neural networks approach have shown that very good
performances can be obtained ( [5], [15], [16]).

Vs

Relations (3)-(5) enable the amounts of energy available,

recoverable or produced monthly (T = 30 24 h) or yearly
(T = 365 24 h).
B. Assessing Wind Energy by Neural Networks Technique
In this research work, an MLP neural network is used to
determine the wind speed distribution law. The statistical study
of wind speed measurements makes it possible to determine
the frequencies of the speed contained in each speed interval
Ii =]Vi1 , Vi ], i = 1 . . . M , M being the index corresponding
to the maximum speed recorded. For each interval Ii , frequency fi is calculated by the expression:
fi =

A. Wind Resource and Wind Generators Production Assessment Principles

where
f () is distribution law or probability density ;
v is the wind speed (m/s);
c is the scale factor (m/s);
k is the shape factor (characterizes the distribution dissymmetry).
The average energy available for a duration period of T
hours (in kW h/m2 ) is assessed, for a continuous distribution
law by the relation 3):
EmT

IV. R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION

A. Neural MPPT Controller for a PV Battery Charging System

f (v) v dv

(3)

The stand-alone PV system represented in gure 3 is

used for simulation. The system comprises a 1.33 kW p PV
generator and a 24 V / 150 Ah lead-acid battery as load.
The neural model of the MPPT controller comprises three
inputs (Isc(m) , Voc(m) and Vout ), one hidden layer with 4
neurons and one output neuron representing the optimal duty
cycle Dopt .
Figure 4 shows variations of solar radiation, cell temperature
and also the corresponding electrical values (short circuit
current and open circuit voltage) obtained from monitoring
cells.
The tracking of the maximum power point is illustrated in
gure 5 where actual and optimal values of the PV generator
power are shown. The maximal value of the relative error
of generated power, determined by equation 7 is less than

where is the air density.

A wind generator is generally characterized by its power
curve function of the speed P = P (v), its rated power Pr , its
starting Vs , rated Vr , maximum Vc speeds. These characteristics make it possible to assess the available energy amount
the wind generator can recover on a given site. For a duration
period of T hours, this energy amount is assessed by the
equation 4):
V

r
Vc
1
T
EgT =
S f (v) v 3 dv + Vr 3
f (v) dv
1000
2
Vs

(6)

in which Ni is the number of speed values contained in Ii .

An MLP neural networks is then worked out to determine the
speed distribution law f (v). The learning database consists of
the couples of points (Vi , fi ), where the Vi are the inputs and
the fi , the outputs.
Determining the relation f (v) enables the amounts of energy available, recoverable or produced (cf equations (3),
(4) and (5)) to be determined. The assessment of a wind
generator production is made starting from the machine power
curve, provided by the constructor in the form of couples of
points (vi , Pi ). The relation P = P (v) can be determined by
using an MLP. The learning database consists of the points
(vi , Pi ) provided by the constructor.

To study the distribution of wind speeds, the two-parameter

Weibull model dened by equation (2) is used very often:
   
v k
k  v k1
exp
(2)
f (v) =
c c
c

1
T

=
1000
2

Ni
N

Vr

(4)

2% which conrm good tracking ability. Figure 6 shows the

evolution of the battery voltage and current.
errP =

Popt Ppv
100%
Popt

(7)

Results show that for neural network based controllers,

the optimal operating point of the PV generator is known in
advance, starting from environmental conditions. The matter
is to set the system to that operating point. This is not valuable
for the other MPPT control techniques, where the optimal
operating point is unknown and the problem is to search for
the right direction to move, as environmental conditions vary.
The latter approach sometimes results in oscillations around
the optimal operating point or loosing it in the case of fast
variations.
The main drawback of neural network based controllers
is the difculty of taking into account the PV generator
parameter change due to ageing. This leads to the necessity of
retraining the neural model when the PV generator parameters
are expected to have changed.

Fig. 6. Evolution of the Battery voltage and current.

B. Assessment of the Wind Energy Potential of the Dakar Site

The wind energy assessment methodology proposed was
applied on the site of Dakar, Senegal (latitude: 14 37 N ,
longitude:17 27 W , altitude: 0 m). The available wind speed
measurements, obtained at the Dakar Airport site, are instantaneous values recorded every three hours and cover a period of
10 years, from 1995 to 2005. These data are used here only for
the purpose of the proposed method validation. More accurate
wind energy assessment require more complete wind speed
measurements. The speed variation slot has been divided into
18 intervals and in each interval, the frequencies have been
determined by relation (6). Weibull model parameters for the
site are: c = 4.9 m/s and k = 2.19. On the other hand, an
MLP neural network with 1 input, 2 hidden layers including 3
neurons each and 1 output has been identied. Wind potential
characteristics assessed by the use of these two models are
then compared with those assessed using the discrete method.
The discrete distribution law obtained by treating the measurements statistically as well as the continuous distribution
laws corresponding to the Weibull model and to the identied
MLP neural network are represented in gure 7.

Fig. 4. Solar radiation, cell temperature and corresponding outputs of

monitoring cells

Fig. 7. Wind speed distribution laws obtained by different methods.

To verify that the relation obtained with the MLP network

is a distribution law, the integral Iv dened by relation (8)

Fig. 5. Evolution of PV generator output power and its optimal value.

has been calculated. The results gives Iv = 0.997, showing

that the relation obtained can be considered
as a distribution

law (f must verify the condition f (v) dv = 1).

TABLE I
A NNUAL ENERGIES AVAILABLE , RECOVERABLE AND PRODUCED BY THE
WIND GENERATOR WES18 AT 10 m ABOVE THE GROUND .
Energies
available (kW h/m2 )
recoverable (M W h)
produced (M W h)

Vmax

Iv =

f (v) dv

(8)

Discrete law
895.6
223.1
69.1

Weibull
770.5
191.7
60.9

MLP
879.2
218.0
68.0

The amount of energy available assessed with the relation (3)

for a one-year period has been determined. Figure 8 shows the
contribution of each speed to the amount of energy available
annually. The assessments made with the MLP network are
nearer the assessments obtained with the discrete law than
those obtained with the Weibull law.
The speed-duration curves have also been determined. Figure 9 shows that the results obtained with the MLP neural
network are closer to the results obtained by means of the
discrete law.
The wind generator WES18 has been simulated with the site
data. The characteristics of this wind generator. The powerspeed characteristics of the wind generator supplied by the
constructor has been modeled by an MLP neural network. The
characteristic supplied by the constructor and that obtained by
the MLP model are presented gure 10.

Fig. 10. The Power-speed characteristic of the wind generator WES18.

Table I gives the total amounts of energies available as

well as those recoverable and produced by the wind generator
WES18 at 10 m above the ground.
V. C ONCLUSION
Through this work, importance of using Articial Neural Networks in Renewable Energy Systems is exhibited. A
method for designing efcient neural controller for maximum
power point tracking of PV generators is presented and simulated. The controller enables to nd the optimal value of
the DC-DC converters duty cycle, starting from the sensed
load voltage, the output values of the short circuit current
and the open circuit voltage of monitoring cells which reect
environmental conditions. While classical MPPT controllers
search for the location of the maximum power point, neural
based controllers know its exact location and try to move
the system to that point. There is no oscillations around the
maximum power point, even if fast variations of environmental
conditions occur. Obtained result from a stand alone PV
system simulation show fast tracking performance of the
designed controller with a low error.
A neural-based approach enabling to assess the wind energy
potential has also been proposed in the paper. The proposed
neural approach enables to accurately determine a site wind
energy characteristics: wind speed frequencies, wind speedduration curves, energies available, recoverable and produced
by a given wind generator. A comparative study with the
method using the Weibull model shows that better results are
obtained with the help of the neural model.

Fig. 8. Yearly available energies assessed with different methods.

Fig. 9. Speed-duration curves obtained with different methods.

10

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

R EFERENCES

The authors would like to thank the UEMOA (West African

Monetary Union) Commission who supports their research
work and has nanced their participation in the SIMS2014
Conference.

[1] A. Mellita and S. A. Kalogiroub. Articial intelligence techniques for

photovoltaic applications: A review. Progress in Energy and Combustion
Science, 34:574632, 2008.
[2] H.Silver. Neural networks in electrical engineering. In Proceedings of
the ASEE New England Section 2006 Annual Conference, 2006.
[3] Haykin Simon. Neural networks: A Comprehensive Foundation. 1998.
[4] R.C. Eberhart and R.W. Dobbins. Neural Network PC Tools: A practical
Guide. Academic Press, 1990.
[5] K. Hornik, M. Stinchcombe, and H. White. Multilayer feedforward
networks are universal approximators. Neural Networks, 2(5):359366,
1989.
[6] D.E. Rumelhart, G.E. Hinton, and R.J. Williams. Learning representations by back-propagating errors. Nature (London), 323:533 536,
1986.
[7] K. S. Gnana Sheela and S.N. Deepa. An efcient hybrid neural
network model in renewable energy systems. In Proc. 2012 IEEE
International Conference on Advanced Communication Control and
Computing Technologies (ICACCCT), pages 359361, 2012.
[8] G. Capizzi, F. Bonanno, and C. Napoli. Recurrent neural networkbased control strategy for battery energy storage in generation systems
with intermittent renewable energy sources. In Proc. 2011 International
Conference on Clean Electrical Power (ICCEP), pages 336 340, 2011.
[9] V. Salas, E. Olias, A. Barrado, and A. Lazaro. Review of the maximum
power point tracking algorithms for stand-alone photovoltaic systems.
Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells, 90:15551578, 2006.
[10] T. Esram and P.L. Chapman. Comparison of photovoltaic array maximum power point tracking techniques. IEEE Transactions of Energy
Conversion, 22(2):439449, 2007.
[11] A. Al-Amoudi and L. Zhang. Optimal control of grid connected pv
system for maximum power point tracking and unity power factor. In
Proc. Seventh Int. Conf. Power Electron. Variable Speed Drives, pages
8085, 1998.
[12] F. Ben Amar, M. Elamouri, and R. Dhifaoui. Energy assessment of
the rst wind farm section of sidi daoud, tunisia. Renewable Energy,
33:23112321, 2008.
[13] F. A. L. Jowder. Wind power analysis and site matching of wind turbine
generators in kingdom of bahrain. Applied Energy, 86:538545, 2009.
[14] A. Ucar and F. Balo. Evaluation of wind energy potential and electricity
generation at six locations in turkey. Applied Energy, 86:18641872,
2009.
[15] G. Cybenko. Approximation by superposition of a sigmoidal function.
Mathematical Control Signals Systems, 2:303314, 1989.
[16] L. Thiaw, G. Sow, S.S. Fall, M. Kasse, E. Sylla, and S. Thioye. A
neural network based approach for wind resource and wind generators
production assessment. Applied Energy, 87:17441748, 2010.

11