Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 54155422

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Expert Systems with Applications

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/eswa

An ant direction hybrid differential evolution algorithm in determining the

tilt angle for photovoltaic modules
Ying-Pin Chang *
Department of Electrical Engineering, Nan Kai University of Technology, Tsaotun, Nantou 542, Taiwan, ROC

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: This paper presents an approach which combines the orthogonal array experiment technique and an ant
Ant direction hybrid differential evolution direction hybrid differential evolution algorithm (ADHDEOA) in determining the tilt angle for photovol-
Orthogonal array taic (PV) modules. In this study, an orthogonal array (OA) is rst conducted to obtain the initial solution.
Photovoltaic Next, an ant direction hybrid differential evolution (ADHDE) is applied to search for a near optimum solu-
Tilt angle
tion. The purpose of this research is to maximize the output power of the module. The suns position at
any time and location was predicted by the mathematical procedure of Julian dating; then, the solar irra-
diation was obtained at each site under a clear sky. The searching for global optimal solution is applied to
a practical experimental system. The results show that the annual optimal angle for the Taipei area is
23.18; for Taichung, 22.32; for Tainan, 21.62; for Kaosiung, 20.83; for Hengchung, 20.27; for Hualian,
22.18; and for Taitung, 20.89 in seven Taiwanese areas, and the actual best annual tilt angles are close
to the computer simulation results.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction using a FORTRAN computer subprogram constructed on the basis

Renewable energy (George, Casazza, & John, 1999) is being
increasingly utilized in electric power systems due to environmen-
tal concerns and energy cost escalation associated with the use of
conventional energy sources. Photovoltaic (PV) (Kacira, Simsek, Ba-
bur, & Demirkol, 2004) energy sources can signicantly offset
costly fuel in small isolated systems and can also have considerable
impact on the system reliability. The performance of a PV module
is affected by its tilt angle with the horizontal plane because the tilt
angle changes the amount of solar energy received by the surface
of the modules. A PV system should be installed to maximize the
solar contribution to a particular load. Optimum PV tilt angle de-
pends on local climate, load consumption temporal prole and lat-
itude. Generally, a surface with tilt angle equal to the latitude of a
location receives maximum insolation. However, some locations
experience a weather pattern where winter is typically cloudier
than summer or the average morning and afternoon insolation is
not symmetric.
In recent years, many studies have appeared in the literature
involving the optimum tilt angle for solar cells and solar collectors.
The performance of mono-crystalline silicon-type PV modules has
been investigated theoretically at different tilt angles and orienta-
tions proposed. The annual performance has been predicted by
* Tel.: +886 49 2563489; fax: +886 49 2565796.
E-mail address: cyp@nkut.edu.tw
of the analysis and connected to the TRNSYS simulation program
(Hussein, Ahmad, & El-Ghetany, 2004). A reasonable estimation
of the optimum tilt angle of a xed collector for maximizing its en-
ergy collection must be done on the basis of monthly global and
diffuse radiation on a horizontal surface. A contour map of the opti-
mum tilt angle of the south-facing collectors used for the entire
year in China has also been outlined, on the basis of the monthly
horizontal radiation at 152 cities around the country, by combining
the optimum tilt angle of another 30 cities on the basis of the ac-
tual monthly diffused radiation (Tang & Wu, 2004). A genetic algo-
rithm and a simulated-annealing method have also been applied
for calculating the optimum installation angle for xed solar-cell
panels (Chen, Lee, & Wu, 2005). In many applications, the disad-
vantage of the genetic algorithm and the simulated-annealing
method involves computation efciency and convergence. The dif-
ferential evolution (DE) method (Storn & Price, 1997), rst pro-
posed by Storn and Price, is one of the best evolution algorithms.
DE is a simple method based on stochastic searching, in which
the function parameters are encoded as oating-point variables.
This method locates the neighborhood of the global optimum
extremely efciently; however, it has the problem of converging
into local optimal solutions. A hybrid version of DE, called hybrid
differential evolution (HDE) (Chiou & Wang, 1998), the migrant
and accelerating operations embedded in HDE can be used to
overcome the traps in local optimal solutions and the problems
of time consumption. Orthogonal arrays (Rao, 1947) in the exper-
imental process for solving practical problems encountered

0957-4174/$ - see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.eswa.2010.01.015
5416 Y.-P. Chang / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 54155422

Mathematical symbols

Apv cell area of PV modules V max the upper terminal voltage

Ad solar azimuth angle V min the lower terminal voltage
E electrical energy k solar ecliptic longitude
M objective function b solar ecliptic latitude
h solar elevation angle as latitude and at the equator
I the output current d longitude at the equator
Iph photo-induced current h the angle between the solar radiation incident line and
Id bypass diode current the normal line
Ish parallel current of solar u the geography of the longitude
JD Julian day n solar azimuth
n day number R tilt angle
P PV module output power Rmax the upper tilt angle
S solar irradiation in (W/m2) Rmin the lower tilt angle
Sc solar constant 1 conversion efciency
V terminal voltage

because such arrays are geometrically balanced in their coverage of
the experimental region after only a few representative experi-
ments. By virtue of consecutive orthogonal arrays, the number of
experiments can be reduced effectively before a set of satisfactory
lter components can be obtained.
Dorigo and Gambardella introduced the ant colony system
(ACS) (Dorigo & Gambardella, 1997), a distributed algorithm ap-
plied to the traveling salesman problem (TSP). Chiou et al. pre-
sented an ant direction hybrid differential evolution (ADHDE)
with integer programming, which is effective and efcient for
solving large capacitor placement problems in distribution sys-
tems (Chiou, Chang, & Su, 2004). The study has two disadvan-
tages: (1) only the total cost due to capacitor placement and
power loss is considered. (2) The ADHDE dose not has a good
way to nd the initial capacitor placement. Therefore, it is dif-
cult to obtain a better solution since the enormous solution space
of the problem.
Determining the tilt angle for photovoltaic modules in the
renewable energy belongs to the constrained combinatorial opti-
mization problems. Traditional methods of search and optimiza-
tion are too slow in nding a solution in a very complex search
space. Hence, some heuristics such as an ant direction hybrid dif-
ferential evolution are widely applied for searching an optimal or
near optimal solution. Akhmad et al. utilized a systematic investi-
gation on the tilt and azimuth angle dependencies of output char-
acteristics of photovoltaic modules, but the method is difcult to
solve by conventional methods such as an exhaustive search (Akh-
mad et al., 1994). From the above literature, a hybrid differential
evolution method embedded with an ant colony search is able to
constantly choose different but most appropriate mutation opera-
tions during the solution process to accelerate searching for a glo-
bal solution. Thus, in this article, an ant direction hybrid
differential evolution algorithm is presented for optimizing tilt an-
gle of PV module. The orthogonal arrays technique is combined
into the designed ADHDE heuristic forming a new heuristic ADH-
DEOA to obtain an initial solution for reducing the searching space
of the addressed problem. The computation results show that the
ADHDEOA is a good method for PV module to determine the tilt
angle.
2. Mathematical model of the solar orbit and position
To obtain the maximum output electrical energy from a PV sys-
tem, it is necessary to understand the nature of the dependence of
the solar orbit and position. The proper adjective relates Julian is
used to the solar orbit and position.
2.1. Julian day (JD)
The Julian day (http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_day)
is the number of a day when counting from the rst day of a year.
January 1 has a Julian day of 1; whereas, December 31 has a Julian
day of 365, except in leap years when it has a Julian day of 366.
2.2. Latitude and longitude at the equator as ; d
Latitude and longitude at the equator as ; d can be expressed in
terms of the solar ecliptic longitude and latitude k; b . Because the
longitude at the equator as is equal to the solar ecliptic longitude k,
the latitude at the equator d can be calculated from I; k and b:
1
d sin sin b cos I cos b sin k sin I 1
where the Earths axis is inclined I = 23.4392 to the plane of its
orbit.
2.3. Solar azimuth and elevation angles Ad ; h
The solar azimuth angle Ad, a horizontal arc, can be calculated,
to a good approximation, by using the following formulas:
 
sinLMST  as
Ad tan1 2
sin u cosLMST  as  cos u tan d
where longitude at the equator can be expressed in terms of Local
Mean Sidereal Time (LMST), which involves introducing a correc-
tion for various local longitudes, and u is the geography of the
longitude.
The solar elevation angle h, the angle between the direction of
the sun and the (idealized) horizon, can be calculated, to a good
approximation, by using the following formula:
1
h sin sin u sin d cos u cos d cosLMST  as  3
2.4. Total global irradiation
Fig. 1 shows the effects of a solar radiation incident line and a
normal line. The radiation that is not reected or scattered but
reaches the surface directly in the line from the solar disc is called
direct radiation. The direct radiation S can be calculated by
S Sc 1 0:033 cos2pn=365 cos h 4
2
where Sc is the solar constant (=1367 W/m ) and n is the day
number.
 Y.-P. Chang / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 54155422 5417

Fig. 1. Effects of solar radiation incident and normal lines.

Assuming that the diffuse radiation is distributed isotropically E

over the sky dome, the diffuse radiation on the inclined surface
is given by
Db 0:51 cos bD
where D is the diffuse radiation on a horizontal plane.
The irradiation reected from the ground is generally small, and
a simple isotropic model is usually sufcient. This gives the result
Rb 0:51  cos bqD
where q is the reectivity value.
We can nd the total global irradiation Gb on the inclined sur-
face as a sum of the all the contribution Eqs. (4)(6):
Gb Sb Db Rb
When the module has a R tilt angle, the h angle between the so-
lar radiation incident line and the normal line is calculated as
follows:
cos h sinh  sin90  R cosh  cos90  R cosAd  n 8
where n is the solar azimuth in degree, the solar azimuth being the
angle at 0 for south-facing, oriented at a positive angle for east-fac-
ing and at a negative angle for west-facing, and R is the angle be-
tween the PV module surface and the horizontal plane.
2.5. Solar-array conventional model
A PV module (Markvart, 2000) consists of a collection of solar
cells connected in a series and/or parallel. Each of these cells is
basically a p-n diode that can convert light energy into electrical
energy. Since the output power of a PV module is the product of
the output current I and terminal voltage V, one has
P VI VIph  Id  Ish
where Iph is the photo-induced current, Id is the bypass diode cur-
rent and Ish denotes parallel current of solar cell.
By integrating P, the electrical energy E is given by
Z t
E Pt dt 10
0
If both the diffuse component, and reected components are ig-
nored, the conversion efciency 1 of the PV modules is calculated
as the ratio of electrical energy E to the direct radiation S as follows:
1  100% 11
S  Apv
where Apv denotes the cell area of PV modules.
5
3. The proposed heuristic algorithm
The ADHDEOA is a heuristic algorithm which is combined by
both an ant direction hybrid differential evolution and a proper
6
orthogonal array for minimizing nonlinear and non-differential
objective function problems. The ACS used in the ADHDEOA is
mainly for nding the proper mutation operations to speed up con-
vergence toward a global solution. Unlike the approach from Dor-
igo and Gambardella (1997), the difference between the objective
7
value in the next generation and the best objective value of the
present generation constructs a uctuant pheromone quality. An
orthogonal array technique applied in the heuristic is to search a
best initial point in the searching process. The overall owchart
of the proposed heuristic algorithm is shown in Fig. 2. The solving
procedures of the designed ADHDEOA heuristic algorithm are sta-
ted as follows (Chiou et al., 2004):
3.1. Orthogonal arrays
The primary advantage of the use of orthogonal arrays (Tagu-
chi, Elsayed, & Hsiang, 1989) is to enhance realization of the char-
acteristics of the parameters with respect to the pertinent
objectives. For a given state of any one variable, all states of other
variables should exist by an equal number of times. This situation
constitutes a balanced experiment and permits the objective
function of one variable under study to be separable from the
objective function of other variables. The result is that the nd-
ings of the experiment are reproducible. An additional advantage
9
of orthogonal arrays is efciency. Although balanced, the design
of orthogonal arrays does not require that all combinations be
tested.
3.2. Ant direction search
Ants can manage to ascertain the shortest route from their col-
ony to feeding sources and back. By using this characteristic of ants,
one can chose a proper mutation operation and determining the
pheromone quality, the visibility and the probability of choosing a
5418 Y.-P. Chang / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 54155422

Start

Read input data

Construct the mathematical model of the

solar orbit and position

Determine the number of levels for thetilt angle

Select the appropriate orthogonal array and assign

the parameters to the orthogonal array
Orthogonal array
Conduct the experiments based on the arrangement
of the orthogonal array

Select the optimal levels oftilt angle

Initialization: Use a starting point by

orthogonal array and find the (Np-1)
random initial vectors by ADHDE
G=0
Ant direction search

ADHDE
Mutation operation

Crossover operation

Evaluation and selection

Migration if necessary

Acceleration if necessary

G=G+1

No
G=Gmax?

Yes
End

Fig. 2. The overall owchart of the proposed heuristic algorithm.

mutation operation, respectively. The details of ant direction search
are described in Chiou et al. (2004).
4. System under study
To conrm the computer simulation results, an experimental
system was implemented for determining the optimum tilt angle
of the PV modules. Six xed-structure PV modules facing due south
were installed with different tilt angles. The experiment was con-
ducted in Taichung, Taiwan between January 2006 and March
2007. Fig. 3 shows a schematic diagram of the system studied for
six different xed-tilt angles of 5, 15, 23.5, 35, 47 and 75,
respectively.
The specic function of each diagram is described below.
4.1. PV module
A PV module, which converts sunlight into electricity, can be
placed on the roof of a house to gain the greatest access to sunlight.
A polycrystalline silicon PV module, KC85T-1, manufactured by
KYOCERA in Japan was used for this experimental system.
4.2. Thermometer and pyranometer
The output power of a PV module is affected by its temperature
and illumination intensity on its surface. In this experiment, to
 Y.-P. Chang / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 54155422 5419

Load Load
regulator (PL Lamp 108W)
PV modules with fixed tilt angle
Charge (75AH,12V)*4
at 5o ,15o , 23.5o ,35o , 47 o and 75o Regulator 1~ 6 A/D
A/D Battery

RS 485
RS 232
o o o
P ranometer at 5 , 23.5 and 47

A/D

Thermometer at 5o , 23.5o and 47 o

A/D
Data-acquisition
system
Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of the system.

collect the daily data on temperature and irradiance for the PV optimization problem, in which the angles are determined at a
module, its temperature was measured by a thermometer and maximum of
the irradiance monitored by a pyranometer. Three thermometers
MR P 12
and pyranometers were installed at different tilt angles 5, 23.5
and 47, respectively. where R denotes the angles.

4.3. Charge regulator and battery 4.6. Constraints

A charge regulator was interposed between the PV module and (1) Tilt angles
the battery. The proper operation of a battery charge regulator
Rmax > R > Rmin 13
should prevent both overcharging and over-discharging of battery
max min
storage, regardless of the system design and seasonal changes in where R and R are the upper and lower tilt angle limits
the load prole. If the system does not have a controller, the result of the PV modules, respectively.
will be a shortened battery life and decreased load availability. The (2) Terminal voltage
12 V, 300 Ah battery with deep-cycle lead-acid gel used in this
V max > V > V min 14
experiment consisted of four parallel strings of 12 V, 75 Ah batter-
ies. These batteries were charged by the PV module during the day where V max and V min are the upper and lower terminal volt-
for an average of 35 h and discharged at night for 5 h or 6 h age limits, respectively.
throughout the load.

4.4. Load regulator and load 4.7. Searching procedure

If a battery is discharged below the deep-cycle, which is 50%,
the result will be an extension of the battery life and increased load
efciency when the battery is charged. The loads of a PV system
can be of various types. In this study, the loads were six uorescent
lamps; thus, the power consumption was 6  18 W 108 W.
When the daily sunshine duration time is an average of 3 h, the
time for collecting electrical energy is 85 W  7 PV
3 h 1785 Wh. Four 12 V, 75 Ah gel deep-cycle lead-acid batteries
were connected in parallel array, the total capacity of which was
12 V  75 Ah  4  50% 1800 Wh when the deep-cycle was set
at 50%. The electrical energy from the PV module was very close
to the total capacity of the batteries.
4.5. Objective function
The objective of this study was to implement a tilt angle calcu-
lation for PV modules so that their output power and solar irradi-
ance can be signicantly increased. The terminal voltage and
constraints of the tilt angles were also considered. The calculation
of tilt angles for PV modules can be formulated as a combinatorial
With the application of the ADHDE method, the procedure of
computing the tilt angle for the xed PV modules is itemized as
follows:
Step 1: Input the parameter of equivalent-circuit model for solar
cell.
Step 2: Construct the mathematical model of the solar orbit and
position for estimating the optimum tilt angle of xed PV
modules using Eq. (1) through Eq. (5).
Step 3: Using Eq. (9) through Eq. (11). The output power P, elec-
trical energy E and the conversion efciency 1 with
respect to tilt angle R can be obtained.
Step 4: The orthogonal array is initially applied to determine the
starting point. Next, the ADHDE nds the N p  1 ran-
dom initial vectors.
Step 5: Choose the population size N p 10, the desired tolerance
of the population diversity e1 0:1, the gene diversity
e2 0:1, scalar factor F = 0.05, the crossover factor
C R 0:5; a 2; b 1 and Q 1, and the maximal iter-
ation number Gmax 50.
5420 Y.-P. Chang / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 54155422

Step 6: Apply ant direction search.
Step 7: Apply DE method, including the mutation, crossover,
evaluation and selection.
Step 8: Acceleration and Migration (if necessary) is embedded in
DE method.
Step 9: Initial iteration number G 0.
Step 10: G G 1.
Step 11: Evaluate the objective function value of the population
and constraints using Eqs. (12)(14).
Step 12: Check if iteration number G is reached Gmax . If satised,
go to next step. Otherwise go to Step 10.
Step 13: End.
5. Results and discussion
The optimum tilt angles of PV modules for different areas of Tai-
wan have been established by using the ADHDEOA method and
accounting for the climatic conditions as well as the latitude of
each site. Seven Taiwanese areas were selected for study is Taipei,
Taichung, Tainan, Kaohsiung, Hengchun, Hualien and Taitung. In
practical applications, PV modules do not operate under a standard
condition. The most important effects that must be allowed for are
due to the variable temperature. The information on sunshine
duration for different days in the year was obtained from the sur-
face data in the annual climatological report published by the Cen-
tral Weather Bureau of Taiwan (CWBT) (http://www.cwb.gov.tw).
When the sunshine duration is 14 h, then the time for collecting
the solar irradiance on the surface of the PV modules extends from
5 AM to 7 PM daily in 0.25 h steps throughout the calendar year by
simulation. During the sunshine duration, the solar irradiance
accumulates each minute with the corresponding sunlight incident
angle.
Table 1 indicates the computed annual, seasonal values of opti-
mal tilt angles, electrical energy, solar radiation, and conversion
efciency on an optimum tilted angle for the seven Taiwanese cit-
ies by using the ADHDEOA method. It is noteworthy that Taiwan,
located in the subtropical region of the earth, experiences a humid
climate with warm temperatures year-round. For this study, the
calendar year was divided into four seasons, as follows: Febru-
aryApril, MayJuly, AugustOctober and NovemberJanuary.
The variation in the seasonal-averaged optimum tilt angles lies
within the range of 23.426.39 for FebruaryApril; 9.41 to
11.94 for MayJuly; 17.9521.13 for AugustOctober and
50.4353.64 from November to January in the Taiwan area, as
shown in Table 1. It is noticeable that the optimum tilt angles for
the months of May through July are negative. The negative sign
determines the tilt angle of modules; therefore, the modules faced
northward. A positive sign indicates that the modules are directed
southward facing.
Table 1 indicates the computed seasonal values of electrical en-
ergy and solar radiation on an optimum tilted angle. It is also indi-
cated that in these seven Taiwanese areas the solar irradiation on
the modules increases from May to July because the daylight from
May to July are longer than those in the other seasons. Meanwhile,
the results presented in Table demonstrate that a module installed
at the seasonal optimum tilt angles for Hengchun receives the min-
imum electrical energy values of 67.75 kWh/m2 from May to July
and the maximum of 67.88 kWh/m2 from the May to July at Taipei
area. The aim of all the optimization processes in solar energy is to
maximize the amount of solar radiation collected during summer.
The preliminary results demonstrate that the seasonal optimum
tilt angles of the modules provide the maximum collection of solar
radiation in summer. In summer, the earths surface receives more
concentrated sunlight than in winter. During the summer season
(MayJuly), it is found that the amount of solar radiation has a
maximum value of 779.51 kWh/m2 at Taipei area. It is noted that
the amount of solar radiation falling over the globe is reduced in
spring (FebruaryApril).
Table 1 also shows that the seasonal conversion efciency of the
modules ranges from 13.17% for Taipei to 13.51% for Hengchun
from August to October. Also, it should be noticed that, the sea-
sonal efciency for Taipei area is higher than that for Hengchun
area in MayJuly season because the daily average ambient tem-
perature of Hengchun is higher than that of the Taipei area at this
time (http://www.cwb.gov.tw). An increase in module tempera-
ture increases the surface temperature of the module, conse-
quently decreasing its efciency.
The seasonal variations in the optimum tilt angles were ex-
tended to evaluate the annual optimum tilt angle, which is a xed
value for any PV module throughout the course of a year. It was
found that in Taiwan the optimal value of the annual maximum so-
lar energy can be obtained from modules oriented southward with
tilt angles in the range of 20.2723.18. For example, in Taichung
the optimal value is 22.32, oriented southward, as listed in Table

Table 1
Annual and seasonal results of PV modules for seven Taiwanese areas (simulation time: 5 AM7 PM, time steps: 0.25 h).

Taipei Taichung Tainan Kaohsiung Hengchun Hualien Taitung

FebruaryApril R (deg.) 26.39 25.37 24.38 23.91 23.40 25.30 24.14
S (kWh/m2) 667.24 667.38 667.56 667.61 667.77 667.39 667.58
E (kWh/m2) 57.70 57.71 57.72 57.73 57.74 57.71 57.73
1 % 13.17 13.17 13.17 13.17 13.17 13.17 13.17
MayJuly R (deg.) 9.41 10.01 10.98 11.36 11.94 10.42 11.29
S (kWh/m2) 779.51 778.85 778.38 778.27 778.09 779.23 778.29
E (kWh/m2) 67.88 67.81 67.77 67.76 67.75 67.85 67.77
1 % 13.27 13.26 13.26 13.26 13.26 13.26 13.27
AugustOctober R (deg.) 21.13 20.13 19.10 18.52 17.95 19.94 18.63
S (kWh/m2) 691.26 691.31 691.38 691.49 691.46 691.77 691.80
E (kWh/m2) 59.78 59.79 59.86 61.02 61.34 60.21 60.01
1 % 13.17 13.18 13.19 13.44 13.51 13.26 13.21
NovemberJanuary R (deg.) 53.64 52.36 51.33 50.82 50.43 52.45 51.04
S (kWh/m2) 731.17 732.31 734.29 734.91 734.86 732.16 734.93
E (kWh/m2) 63.57 63.44 63.99 64.34 63.77 63.83 63.69
1 % 13.24 13.20 13.27 13.34 13.22 13.28 13.20
Annual R (deg.) 23.18 22.32 21.62 20.83 20.27 22.18 20.89
S (kWh/m2) 2656.28 2657.78 2658.19 2658.55 2658.67 2656.97 2658.52
E (kWh/m2) 231.41 230.68 231.78 232.36 233.82 229.82 229.50
1 % 13.270 13.221 13.282 13.313 13.396 13.175 13.149
 Y.-P. Chang / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 54155422 5421

Table 2
Comparison of ADHDEOA method, GA method and the authorized result by ITRI.

Taipei Taichung Tainan Kaohsiung Hengchun Hualien Taitung

ADHDEOA Ropt: (deg.) 23.18 22.32 21.62 20.83 20.27 22.18 20.89
E (kWh/m2) 229.23 229.30 229.41 229.44 229.46 229.30 229.44
GA Ropt: (deg.) 22.96 22.29 20.92 20.60 20.23 22.46 21.05
E (kWh/m2) 229.18 229.25 229.36 229.40 229.41 229.25 229.39
ITRI R23:5 (deg.) 23.5 23.5 23.5 23.5 23.5 23.5 23.5
E (kWh/m2) 228.46 228.48 228.45 228.42 228.32 228.46 228.45

2. For this year, a PV module tilted at an angle equal to the latitude 250
of the location will receive nearly normal solar radiation. Simulation result
240 Experimental result

(
Table 2 shows the comparison of ADHDEOA, GA and authorized

Electrical energy (kWH/m2

result at tilt angle of 23.5by ITRI (The Industrial Technology
Research Institute) (http://www.itri.org.tw) for seven different 230
areas in Taiwan. The results showed that electrical energy from
220
module by using ADHDEOA method is higher than those of GA
method and the authorized result at tilt angle of 23.5. Hence,
210
the tilt angle of 23.5 for the xed-structure PV modules should
not be adopted for different places to obtain the maximum overall
200
output electrical energy.
Fig. 4 shows the comparison the annual electrical energy be- 0
tween the experimental and simulation result with six different tilt Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
angles installed at Taichung. In this gure, the 10-day data of the
Fig. 5. Variation in annual electrical energy for south-facing PV modules in Taipei
PV module on the electrical energy are collected randomly. Module area.
receives annual electrical energy through experimental result low-
er than the computer simulation result since the weather condition
is different. It can be found that the optimal tilt angle for obtaining
(
Electrical energy (kWH/m2

the maximum electrical energy is 23.5. It implies that ADHDEOA 223

is good methods for determining the optimal tilt angle for xed
modules. Another similar comparison for annual electrical energy 224
between the experimental and simulation result with optimal tilt
angles installed at Taipei is shown Fig. 5. From this comparison, 225 GA
ADHDEOA
it was found that electrical energy in the range of 223239 kWh/
m2 can be obtained from PV modules oriented southward. It was 230
indicates that the module had a maximum value of 239 kWh/m2 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Generation
on July received the maximum electrical energy. The average-an-
nual computer-simulated tilt angle was 229.30 kWh/m2. It should Fig. 6. Histories of annual electrical energy with respect to number of generations
be noted that the modules had the minimum electrical energy dur- in Taichung area.
ing winter. Thus, in this gure implies that the experimental result
of electrical energy is very close to simulation result by using the
ADHDEOA methods. quality between ADHDEOA and GA. It shows that ADHDEOA and
To demonstrate that the proposed method is efcient, Fig. 6 GA take 12 and 23 generations to converge, respectively. It should
shows the comparison of computation efciency and solution be noted that, in annual in Taichung area, the ADHDEOA method is
faster than GA. The objective function obtained by GA is lower.

80 6. Conclusion

The calculation of the optimal tilt angle of xed PV modules

(
Electrical energy (kWH/m2

60 based on the ADHDEOA has been presented. The orthogonal array

Simulation result
Experimental result was applied to systematically design an ant direction hybrid differ-
ential evolution algorithm neural network. The design and devel-
40 opment time for ant direction hybrid differential evolution
algorithm can be reduced tremendously. This technique greatly re-
duced the number of experiments and provided superior perfor-
20 mance results with signicant interaction effects and nonlinear
variations. The orthogonal arrays and the proper mutation opera-
tions embedded in ADHDEOA are used to verify the global optimal
0 solution and consume less time. Experiment system for PV mod-

5 15 23.5 35 47 75
ules located in Taichung area, Taiwan, is conducted to conrm
Tilt angle of PV modules
the computer simulation results. The experimental results indicate
Fig. 4. Comparison of annual electrical energy for six PV modules different tilt angle that the actual annual tilt angles are very close to the computer
in Taichung area. simulation results.
5422 Y.-P. Chang / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 54155422

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