Implementation of ANN technique for performance prediction of solar thermal systems: A Comprehensive Review

Solar thermal systems (STS) are efficient and environmentally safe devices to meet the rapid increasing energy demand now a days. But it is very important to optimize their performance under required operating condition for efficient usage. Hence intelligent system-based techniques like artificial neural network (ANN) play an important role for system performance prediction in accurate and speedy way. In present paper, it is attempted to scrutinize the approach of ANN as an intelligent system-based method to accurately optimize the performance prediction of different solar thermal systems. Here, 25 research works related to various solar thermal systems have been reviewed and summarized to understand the impact of different ANN models and learning algorithms on performance prediction of STS. Using ANN, a brief stepwise summary of researchers’ work on various STS like solar air heaters, solar stills, solar cookers, solar dryers and solar hybrid systems, their predictions (results) and architectures (network and learning algorithms) in the literature till now, are also discussed here. This paper will genuinely help future researchers overview the work concisely related to solar thermal system performance prediction using various types of ANN models and learning algorithm and compare it with other global methods of machine learning. Citation: Ahmad, A., Ghritlahre, H. K., and Chandrakar, P. (2020). Implementation of ANN technique for performance prediction of solar thermal systems: A Comprehensive Review. Trends in Renewable Energy, 6, 12-36. DOI: 10.17737/tre.2020.6.1.0011