MLP-BP Based Optimal Ranking of Solar Power Plant Site

Abstract

Primary energy sources are running out with the increase in electrical energy consumption. Energy is the key driver to the growth in any economy. One of the biggest challenges today is to meet the continuously rising demand for energy. Renewable energy serves as a solution to the above issue. Renewable energy site selection is a Multiple Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) problem. MCDM is a complex Decision-Making (DM) tool. This context relates to the optimal site selection for solar power plant (SPP). The SPP selection of site relies on a set of qualitative and quantitative criteria, which are uncertain. The objective of this paper is to enable policy-maker to achieve the best potential SPP installation site focusing on attributes such as solar radiation, temperature, distance from the road, distance from the protected area and sunshine hour. This paper reviews an MLP-BP algorithm to carry out site selection for SPP in Rajasthan, West Bengal and Karnataka, and results are obtained as the weight of the output and attributes its class as good, fair and poor. This algorithm helps in simplicity for the site selection for utility-scale Photovoltaic (PV) solar energy systems by considering the important criteria for the decision process.