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Solar Energy Vol. 72, No. 5, pp. 441446, 2002 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd S 0 0 3 8 0 9 2 X ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 1 0 5 All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain 0038-092X / 02 / $ - see front matter

GENERATION OF HOURLY IRRADIATION SYNTHETIC SERIES USING THE NEURAL NETWORK MULTILAYER PERCEPTRON
L. HONTORIA* , , J. AGUILERA* , and P. ZUFIRIA**
*Grupo Investigacion y Desarrollo en Energa Solar y Automatica, Departamento de Electronica, E.U.P. Linares, Universidad de Jaen, Alfonso X El Sabio 28, 23700 Linares-Jaen, Spain **Grupo de Redes Neuronales, Departamento de Matematica Aplicada a las Tecnologas de la Informacion E.T.S.I.T.-U.P.M., Ciudad Universitaria s / n, 28040 Madrid, Spain Received 4 April 2001; revised version accepted 20 November 2001 Communicated by RICHARD PEREZ

AbstractIn this work, a methodology based on the neural network model called multilayer perceptron (MLP) to solve a typical problem in solar energy is presented. This methodology consists of the generation of synthetic series of hourly solar irradiation. The model presented is based on the capacity of the MLP for nding relations between variables for which interrelation is unknown explicitly. The information available can be included progressively at the series generator at different stages. A comparative study with other solar irradiation synthetic generation methods has been done in order to demonstrate the validity of the one proposed. 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. Problem description

One of the rst problems to solve in the design of solar systems (photovoltaic or solar thermal) is the search for long sequences of solar radiation. In the design of any solar system it is necessary to know these solar radiation series in order to simulate the operating conditions the system will have. Nevertheless, these series are non-existent for most locations or even where available, their quality is very poor. Finding records of long sequences of hourly solar radiation is rather difcult. In order to solve this problem, many researchers have demonstrated that it is possible to replace real series of solar radiation by synthetic ones. These synthetic series are generated by different methods. The statistical properties of these new series have to be the same as the real ones (Aguiar and Collares-Pereira, 1991).

1.2. Previous work

Over the last few decades, many radiation models and several generators of synthetic solar radiation series have been proposed. First attempts for generating solar radiation series were based on

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel.: 134-953-026-558; fax: 134-953-026-508; e-mail: hontoria@ujaen.es Member of ISES.

radiation as the variable to model. For instance Goh and Tan (1977) used ARMA (autoregressive moving average) for Singapore, Hittle and Pedersen (1981) used Fourier analysis, and Balouktsis and Tsalides (1986) did the same for Greece. Some other work has also been done since the 1980s, by some research groups, for instance, the Solar Energy and Building Physics Laboratory (LESO-PB / EPFL) (Bochud et al., 1991). Nevertheless using solar radiation as the variable to model has a problem: that variable is specic to each location so those models are only applicable locally. A second attempt was made. In this one the variable to model was the atmospheric transmittance or clarity index. Liu and Jordan (1960) demonstrated that the probability features of this new variable are quasi-universal. The atmospheric transmittance or clarity index is dened as the quotient between the global irradiation and the extra-atmospheric irradiation. The symbol KT will be used for the daily clarity index and k t for hourly values. Using the clarity index, Dagleman (1976) made a rst study of hourly series using clarity index distribution curves. Excell (1981) modelled Thai data. Mustacchi et al. (1979) used the ARMA model. However, the more frequently used models are those proposed by Aguiar and Collares-Pereira (1992), Graham et al. (1987, 1988) and Graham and Hollands (1990). The models proposed by Aguiar and CollaresPereira and Graham and Hollands, referred to now

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as AC and GH respectively, may be considered as paradigms in the eld of hourly radiation modelling. They are auto-regressive rst-order models, based on a stochastic disaggregation methodology, that generate hourly irradiation series making use of daily values. These values can be obtained from historical records (where daily records are more common than hourly data) or by using daily generation methods in turn (which are better validated than hourly methods). Complex empirical expressions are proposed to relate the hourly and daily values, obtaining the parameters in the formulae via regression analysis over historical data. In both models, the construction of hourly solar radiation series values is based on the decomposition of the clarity index into two components: one component called the trend or mean component and the other one the random component. The rst one follows the evolution of the clarity index during the day and the second one consists of random uctuations in the trend component. This can be expressed by the equation: k t 5 k tm 1 a (1)

a compact set within a prescribed error margin (Barron, 1993; Cybenko, 1989; Funahashi, 1989; Hornik et al., 1989). It may be proved that it is enough to employ an MLP with a hidden layer, a required number of neurones and an appropriate training procedure. In practice, selection of appropriate topology as well as training algorithms may become a big challenge. This work improves previous results, where an a priori knowledge of the initial values of the series to be generated was assumed. Another important aspect addressed in this paper is the possibility of employing the presented architecture with reduced knowledge of the problem to be considered. In that sense the paper denes a simple design methodology with quite general applicability. The paper is organised as follows. Section 2 presents the MLP structure for generating the trend component of the series. In Section 3 the neural network model for the random component is explained. The comparative study with other methods is developed in Section 4. Finally, some conclusions and future actions are described in Section 5.

where k tm is the trend component and a the random component. When the day is clear, the trend component is more inuential. On cloudy days the inuence of the random component is greater. The approach of both models to generating the trend component is very similar. Each proposes some equations depending on the daily clarity index. For generating the random component, the two models are quite different. GH used an ARMA model and Gaussian inversion. AC used a time-dependent autoregressive Gaussian model. Furthermore, new approaches for generating solar radiation series have been developed using articial neural networks. It is worth mentioning the work of Negnevitsky and Le (1995), Alawi and Hinai (1998), Mohandes et al. (1998), Kemmoku et al. (1999) and Sfetsos and Coonick (2001).

2. NEURAL NETWORK MODEL FOR THE TREND COMPONENT

2.1. Recurrent neural networks

During the last 15 years, articial neural networks have been employed extensively in several elds of science and technology. Supervised neural networks are becoming established as the sturdiest and easily handled. The multilayer perceptron (MLP) is the most common supervised neural network and is used for approximation of functions. It consists of a neural network with an entrance or input layer with several input nodes, one or more hidden layers and an output layer. The MLP, in static contexts, is usually trained via a supervised procedure. The existence of a very efcient training method, the back propagation algorithm (Rumelhart and MacClelland, 1986), is one of its great advantages. Also, in dynamic contexts, problems such as time series prediction (TSP) have been successfully addressed via feedback architectures of supervised neural models (Narendra and Parthasarathy, 1990, 1991; Weigend et al., 1990; Zuria, 1995). The solution to TSP via MLP makes use of the time series hs n j, for obtaining the function G (assuming that such a function exists) which

1.3. Method based on neural networks

In this paper, a new neural network approach using a multilayer perceptron (MLP) (Agarwal, 1997; Haykin, 1994; Hush and Horne, 1993; Kohonen, 1995; Lippmann, 1987), in a feedforwardfeedback architecture is proposed for the generation of hourly solar radiation series, and its results are compared to the AC and GH methods. The approach is based on the MLP capability for approximating any continuous function dened on

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relates each series value with the previous p values: s n11 5 G(s n2p11 , . . . , s n )(MLP(s n 2p11 , . . . , s n ). (2) By training an MLP with p inputs and 1 output, with a sufciently representative training set, the MLP will be able to nd the desired relationship (in the case that it exists) just by approximating the function G. So, future values can be computed via feedback of the predictions whenever they are available (Zuria, 1995).

2.2. Available irradiation data

For the training of the MLP and for the subsequent validation, it is necessary to use real solar radiation series. Some locations have been chosen for that objective: Oviedo, Logrono, Mad rid, Mallorca, Badajoz, Murcia y Malaga. These are Spanish locations with different latitudes and climates. In Table 1 some features of the locations chosen are shown.

Fig. 1. MLP architecture for predicting k tm (trend component).

2.3. Structure of the multilayer perceptron ( MLP) proposed

The methodology shown in Section 2.1 for times series prediction and system identication via MLP denes the framework of the method developed for the problem addressed here: the generation of hourly clearness index series hk t j. For our computational experiments, a set of hourly irradiation values k t measured at the locations shown in Table 1, and the corresponding daily values KT have been used. As a rst approach, in order to evaluate the quality of a generated series, the rst years were considered as a training set, and the last year was employed for testing the validity of the generated series, for each location. The proposed method has been developed via step-by-step inclusion of the available associated information. The great advantage of this MLP-

based methodology is that explicit knowledge of the relationship among all the information sources is not needed. Such information sources can be progressively incorporated in different steps within the proposed method. The details of this stepby-step procedure can be found in Zuria et al. (1999). The nal procedure, employing an MLP in a mixed feedbackfeedforward conguration, is shown in Fig. 1. As described in Hontoria et al. (1999) and Zuria et al. (1999) the seven inputs are: d n : distance (days) between the value to be generated and the day with maximum value in the hk t j annual distribution, in order to keep the monthly stationality, h n : indicates the hour order number of the k t value (ensuring the hourly stationality). Both inputs (d n and h n ) are normalised to the range [0, 1], KT : daily clearness index, k t 21 , k t 22 , k t23 : hourly clearness index of the three previous hours, s: this is an input taking the values h0, 1j, that indicates whether an hour is between sunrise and sunset (k t should be different from 0) or not (k t has to be 0).

Table 1. Locations studied Location Oviedo Logrono Madrid Palma de Mallorca Badajoz Murcia Malaga Climate Atlantic Continental Extreme Continental Island Mediterranean Temperate Continental Arid Mediterranean Mediterranean Latitude 43.358 42.468 40.458 39.338 38.898 38.008 36.668 Record years 19771984 (8) 19811984 (4) 19771984 (8) 19771984 (8) 19761983 (8) 19771984 (8) 19771984 (8)

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Fig. 4. MLP for the standard deviation sa .

3. MODEL FOR THE RANDOM COMPONENT

3.1. Previous work. Random component according to AC

Fig. 2. Real series versus prediction by the MLP. Days 15 (winter), Madrid.

The training was done using the back propagation algorithm (with momentum and random presentations), eventually combined with second order optimisation methods during the last few epochs. The hidden layer has 15 nodes.

As has been mentioned in Section 1.2, the clarity index can be expressed by Eq. (1), where the two components of k t can be observed. One is the trend component, k tm , which has just been studied and developed in Section 2. The other is the random component a. According to AC, the random component, a, can be generated following an ARMA model: y(h) 5 f y(h 2 1) 1 r (3)

2.4. Results for the trend component

As has been mentioned in Section 2.3, the methodology proposed has been applied as follows: a set of hourly irradiation values k t measured at the locations studied, and the corresponding daily values KT have been used. The rst years were considered as a training set, and the last year was employed for testing the validity of the generated series at each location and also for comparisons with other methods. In Figs. 2 and 3 some days generated by the MLP are presented versus real days. As can be seen, the trend component follows the real data perfectly. Also, as will be shown in the comparative study with other methods, the results are quite satisfactory.

with f the autocorrelation coefcient. This coefcient is dependent on the daily clarity index KT , r is a random number, which follows a Gaussian distribution, with null average and standard deviation s 9 5 (1 2 f 2 )0.5 , y(h) is a variable k t (h) normalised at hour h. The normalisation is done as follows: y(h) 5 a /sa (Kt , h) (4)

recalling that a 5 [k t (h) 2 k tm (Kt , h)]. In this equation sa is the standard deviation of a for a clarity index KT sa is a function of the hour and KT . y(h 2 1) is the same as y(h) but for the previous hour. Once the series hyj is calculated it is easy to obtain the series hk t j.

3.2. Random component according to the MLP

In this work a similar method for obtaining the random component as that of AC described in Section 3.1 is used. Nevertheless there are some differences. MLPs are used for calculating the autocorrelation coefcient (f ) and the standard deviation of a (sa ). The structures of these new MLPs are shown in Figs. 4 and 5.

Fig. 3. Real series versus prediction by the MLP. Days 190 194 (summer), Madrid.

Fig. 5. MLP for the autocorrelation coefcient f.

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The training of the MLP is similar to the MLP for the trend component.

4. COMPARATIVE STUDY WITH OTHER METHODS

4.1. Variables to compare

In order to validate the methodology proposed and test the synthetic data obtained, a comparative study of real and articial data has been made. The variables taken into account are as follows.

4.1.1. Monthly mean value ( MMV). The rst statistical feature studied to characterise solar radiation is the monthly mean value which is dened as the mean of all the values in a month, using daily values. To calculate the monthly mean clarity index (KTm ) rstly the monthly mean global irradiation (Hdm ) and the monthly mean extraterrestrial irradiation (Hodm ) have been calculated so the monthly mean clarity index can be calculated. The expressions employed for this purpose are:
Hdm 5 Hodm

with k tp being the predicted k t value and k tav e the average of k t . This parameter is proportional to the standard deviation. A synthetic year has been generated by the MLP method, and by the AC and GH method. These three synthetic years have been compared with the real test year. The results can be seen in Table 2. As can be seen in Table 2, the values of the annual irradiation of the synthetic year obtained by the MLP method are closer to the real data than the values of the years obtained by the other two methods. Also the parameter MRV is better for the method proposed.
5. CONCLUSIONS

O H /n 5O H /n
d d od h

(5) (6) (7)

KTm 5 Hdm /Hodm where n is the number of days of the month.

4.1.2. Mean relative variance. The other selected parameter taken into account is the mean relative variance (MRV). As a distance measure, this magnitude, commonly employed in the digital signal processing community, quanties the relative error, and it is dened as the quotient of the prediction error signal power and the AC power of the signal to be predicted:
MRV5

O (k 2 k ) YO (k 2 k
2 t tp t h h

t ave

)2

(8)

In this paper, a new methodology for generating solar irradiation hourly data has been presented. The methodology proposed is based on the neural network called multilayer perceptron (MLP). Such methodology is based on the possibility of implicitly employing information associated with the problem, without knowing the existing relationships between different variables and sources of information; i.e. the proposed method does not assume any a priori model, as opposed to the standard approximation techniques where polynomial regression techniques are employed. Furthermore, test results have shown that the neural network approach outperforms those methods. Three different perceptrons have been developed, one for generating the trend component of the synthetic series and the other two for generating the random component. In previous publications it was demonstrated that the trend component was easily generated by the rst perceptron proposed. In those papers a comparative study with other methods was presented with satisfactory results. With the two new perceptrons, the random

Table 2. Comparisons between test year and the three methods Location Oviedo Logrono Madrid P. Mallorca Badajoz Murcia Malaga Annual Hdm (kJ m 22 ) Real 11.26 14.60 16.32 15.58 16.21 16.38 16.53 MLP 11.30 14.65 16.34 15.60 16.25 16.40 16.57 GH 11.25 14.71 16.46 15.76 16.46 16.62 16.88 AC 11.49 14.96 16.70 16.03 16.77 16.91 17.14 MRV MLP 0.3476 0.3082 0.2307 0.2398 0.2539 0.2519 0.2571 AC 0.4128 0.3420 0.3024 0.3261 0.3081 0.3086 0.3524 GH 0.4527 0.3913 0.3274 0.3352 0.3162 0.3083 0.3717

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component has also been obtained. A comparative study with the AC and GH methods has been done and the results obtained by the methodology proposed were an improvement on those obtained with the classical methods. The proposed methodology could be easily extended to the generation of radiation series on a minute scale, a eld that still lacks a reference theoretical frame and for which data are becoming available nowadays, and to the generation of radiation on a daily scale, a eld where some good results are being obtained nowadays.
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