Monthly Average Irradiation Forecasting for Malawi’s Solar Resources
Anand Mohan1, Mathangeni Ngwira2
1Anand Mohan, Associate Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, A P Goyal Shimla University, Himachal Pradesh, India.
2Mathangeni Ngwira, Student, M.Tech, Department of Electrical Engineering, A P Goyal Shimla University, Himachal Pradesh, India.
Manuscript received on 02 June 2019 | Revised Manuscript received on 10 June 2019 | Manuscript published on 30 June 2019 | PP: 1049-1060 | Volume-8 Issue-8, June 2019 | Retrieval Number: H6564068819/19©BEIESP
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© The Authors. Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Abstract: Irradiation forecasting for the years 2019, 2020 and 2021 were the main focus in this piece of paper, the established basis was the year 2018 using data from the previous past five years that is 2013 to 2017. The predicted radiation values were from a selected few locations from the country which were sixteen in total, this paper has established an overview of the expected sun’s energy using a model that was established using Artificial Neural Network (ANN)computed with matlab, from the output the results indicate all the monthly averages from the sixteen locations exceeding 6 kWh/m2 /day. A total of six inputs and one target which were sunshine hours, Relative Humidity, Wind speed, Rainfall, Maximum and Minimum Temperature and daily solar radiation respectively were used to ensure that solar radiation is predicted properly, this was done with the purpose of tapping into the potential of a readily available renewable energy resource which is apparently not fully exploited. The year 2018 registered Chitheche and Nkhotakota with the lowest value of 6.79 kWh/m2 /day andMangochi registering the highest value of 7.10 kWh/m2 /day. The predictions for the year 2019 registered the lowest value from Kasungu of 6.51 kWh/m2 /day and the Ngabu the highest value of 7.26 kWh/m2 /day, 7.77 kWh/m2 /day was predicted as the highest value from Chikwawa in 2020 and Mzimba registered 6.76 kWh/m2 /day as the lowest value. Lastly the year 2021 registered Chitedze with lowest value and Mzuzu had the highest value, the lowest and highest irradiation were 6.91 kWh/m2 /day and 8.26 kWh/m2 /day respectively.
Keyword: ANN, Irradiance, MAPE, prediction.
Scope of the Article: Petroleum and Mineral Resources Engineering.