Introduction

Abstract

This chapter gives you a bird’s eye view of solar energy and puts solar energy systems into their proper context with regard to their usefulness and potential uses. The article starts off with a detailed breakdown of the many different types of solar power systems, along with their respective uses, benefits, and drawbacks. It then provides an overview of all the different kinds of thermal systems before moving on to the modeling and optimization issues that are unique to each. The evaluation of these solar energy systems’ performance is a multi-objective optimization issue that relies heavily on a wide range of system and operational elements, as well as environmental or climatic characteristics. This chapter covers not only solar thermal systems but also solar photovoltaic (PV) systems and other hybrid energy sources. The following numbers refer to the modeling and optimization of various solar energy systems using soft computing approaches and are based on the results of previous studies. The chapter concludes with a high-level discussion of the possible reach of future work on modeling and optimizing solar energy systems through the application of numerous distinct soft computing technologies.