Prediction of solar radiation on building rooftops: A data mining approach

Solar energy technologies offer a clean, renewable, and domestic energy source, and are essential components of a sustainable energy future. The accurate measurement of solar radiation data is essential for optimum site selection of future distributed solar power plants as well as sizing photovoltaic systems. However, solar radiation data are not readily available because measured sequences of radiation values are obtained for a few locations in a country. When the data are available, they are usually at different time periods and spatial scale. The availability of solar radiation data at hourly or daily time scale will enhance the integration of solar energy into electricity generation and promotion of a sustainable energy future. The ability to generate approximate solar radiation values is often the only practical way to obtain radiation data at hourly or daily time scale. As a result, several models have been developed for estimating solar radiation values based on analytical, numerical simulation, and statistical approaches. However, these models have inherent challenges. We will discuss some of those challenges in this paper. To enhance the prediction of solar radiation values, a novel approach is presented for estimating solar radiation values using support vector machine technique. The approach accounts for unique characteristics that influence solar radiation values. The preliminary results obtained offer useful insights for model enhancements.