Solar savings through bird-inspired algorithm

Researchers at Swinburne University have created a bird-inspired algorithm that could dramatically increase the efficiency of the more than three million solar panels on Australian roofs.

Solar panel efficiency can be impacted up to 92% by partial shading, where birds, dust or surrounding structures block out part of the sun. The new algorithm allows the shaded parts of the panel to be bypassed, saving solar owners money and generating a greater volume of renewable energy.

Associate Professor Mehdi Seyedmahmoudian, from Swinburne’s School of Science, Computing and Engineering Technologies, said many solar owners are unaware of the large impact that just a single bird or shaded panel can have. “People often spend a lot of money on solar panels to increase efficiency, without knowing that these small changes on the rooftop, which are out of their control, can actually drop the solar panels’ efficiency dramatically,” he said.

Seyedmahmoudian and his New Energy Technologies Research Group revealed that 52% of partial-shading conditions are created by birds.

“Our thinking was that if the problem is created by nature, then we need to implement nature to solve it,” Seyedmahmoudian said.

“Obviously we cannot control the birds, so we studied their movement to create a nature-inspired artificial intelligence. Now when you have birds over a panel, that section can be bypassed and you can get the highest efficiency possible from the rest of your solar panels.”

Because the system uses existing hardware and integrates the nature-inspired algorithm into the intelligent system, the technology doesn’t come at a huge cost. The smart software can also detect damaged or malfunctioning panels and divert unused power in the meantime.

“People were focusing on infrastructure technology rather than the intelligence of the system. You cannot control the environment, so this is a very cost-effective way to improve the efficiency,” Seyedmahmoudian said.

Seyedmahmoudian is now working with his research group so that their solution can be installed directly into existing household set-ups. “We are developing our own inverters within our research group, and also looking forward to exploring opportunities to work and share our knowledge with existing inverter companies.”

For the research team, the most important step is creating a pathway to implement and integrate the system at people’s homes.

“We want to be able to go to somebody’s home and say, ‘I’m going to give you this box, you don’t need any new hardware, I’m just going to install this inverter and as a result your solar system will dramatically improve’.”

Image credit: iStock.com/Frank Cornelissen