Output Power Prediction of Solar Photovoltaic Panel Using Machine Learning Approach

Abstract

Solar power-based photovoltaic energy conversion could be considered one of the best sustainable sources of electric power generation. Thus, the prediction of the output power of the photovoltaic panel becomes necessary for its efficient utilization. The main aim of this paper is to predict the output power of solar photovoltaic panels using different machine learning algorithms based on the various input parameters such as ambient temperature, solar radiation, panel surface temperature, relative humidity and time of the day. Three different machine learning algorithms namely, multiple regression, support vector machine regression and gaussian regression were considered, for the prediction of output power, and compared on the basis of results obtained by different machine learning algorithms. The outcomes of this study showed that the multiple linear regression algorithm provides better performance with the result of mean absolute error, mean squared error, coefficient of determination and accuracy of 0.04505, 0.00431, 0.9981 and 0.99997 respectively, whereas the support vector machine regression had the worst prediction performance. Moreover, the predicted responses are in great understanding with the actual values indicating that the purposed machine learning algorithms are quite appropriate for predicting the output power of solar photovoltaic panels under different environmental conditions.