Application of Generalized Regression Neural Network in Predicting the Performance of Solar Photovoltaic Thermal Water Collector

Solar photovoltaic thermal water collector (SPV/T-WC) is a hybrid device which converts power from the solar energy in to thermal and electrical simultaneously. The performance of such SPV/T-WC mainly depends on its electrical and thermal power output. Besides the performance of SPV/T-WC, is more sensitive to the transient nature of electrical and thermal power output. Thus a demand for predicting the performance variations in the SPV/T-WC is demand by users. Only limited performance prediction based research works are attempted in the performance prediction of the SPV/T-WC either numerically or by using cognitive models. In this study, two generalized regression neural network (GRNN) models are proposed to predict the transient performance variations in the SPV/T-WC. The two individual objectives of the first and second model include the prediction of overall power output and the overall efficiency delivered by an SPV/T-WC system. Both the GRNN models proposed in this study consist of two inputs and single output. In order to train this GRNN model, real time experiments are conducted with stand-alone SPV/T-WC for four continuous days. Then based on such experimental data sets, GRNN models are trained, tested, and validated. The results predicted by the both GRNN models are in good agreement with the real time experimental results. The overall accuracy of the proposed GRNN models in predicting the performance is 95.36% and 96.22% respectively.