In this paper, a Firefly algorithm is proposed for identification and comparative study of five, seven and eight parameters of a single and double diode solar cell and photovoltaic module under different solar irradiation and temperature. Further, a metaheuristic algorithm is proposed in order to predict the electrical parameters of three different solar cell technologies. The first is a commercial RTC mono-crystalline silicon solar cell with single and double diodes at 33 °C and 1000 W/m². The second, is a flexible hydrogenated amorphous silicon a-Si:H solar cell single diode. The third is a commercial photovoltaic module (Photowatt-PWP 201) in which 36 polycrystalline silicon cells are connected in series, single diode, at 25 °C and 1000 W/m² from experimental current-voltage. The proposed constrained objective function is adapted to minimize the absolute errors between experimental and predicted values of voltage and current in two zones. Finally, for performance validation, the parameters obtained through the Firefly algorithm are compared with recent research papers reporting metaheuristic optimization algorithms and analytical methods. The presented results confirm the validity and reliability of the Firefly algorithm in extracting the optimal parameters of the photovoltaic solar cell.

Understanding how, why and when energy consumption changes provides a tool for decision makers throughout the power networks. Thus, energy forecasting provides a great service. This research proposes a probabilistic approach to capture the five inherent dimensions of a forecast: three dimensions in space, time and probability. The forecasts are generated through different models based on artificial neural networks as a post-treatment of point forecasts based on shallow artificial neural networks, creating a dynamic ensemble. The singular value decomposition (SVD) technique is then used herein to generate temperature scenarios and project different futures for the probabilistic forecast. In additional to meteorological conditions, time and recency effects were considered as predictor variables. Buildings that are part of a university campus are used as a case study. Though this methodology was applied to energy demand forecasts in buildings alone, it can easily be extended to energy communities as well.

Reflectarray antennas are low-profile high-gain systems widely applied in the aerospace industry. The increase in their application is leading to the problem of getting more advanced performance while keeping the system as simple as possible. In these cases, their design cannot be conducted via analytical methods, thus evolutionary optimization algorithms are often implemented. Indeed, the design is characterized by the presence of many local minima, by high number of design variables, and by the high computational burden required to evaluate the antenna performance. The purpose of this paper is to develop, implement, and test a complete Optimization Environment that can be applied to achieve high scanning capabilities with a reflectarray. The design of the optimization environment has been selected to be flexible enough to be applied also with other different algorithms.

The growing penetration of renewable energy sources into electricity grids, along with the problems linked to the electrification of rural areas, has drawn more attention to the development of microgrids. Their Energy Management Systems (EMSs) can be based on evolutionary optimization algorithms to identify efficient scheduling plans and improve performance. In this paper, a new approach based on evolutionary algorithms (EAs) is designed, implemented, and tested on a real microgrid architecture to evaluate its effectiveness. The proposed approach effectively combines heuristic information with the optimization capabilities of EAs, achieving excellent results with reasonable computational effort. The proposed system is highly flexible, making it applicable to different network architectures and various objective functions. In this work, the optimization algorithm directly manages the microgrid Energy Management System, allowing for a large number of degrees of freedom that can be exploited to achieve highly competitive solutions. This method was compared with a standard scheduling approach, and an average improvement of 11.87% in fuel consumption was achieved. After analyzing the differences between the solutions obtained, the importance of the features introduced with this new approach was demonstrated.

The correct design of a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is a very important task because it can highly influence its installation and operational costs. An important aspect that should be addressed with WSN is the routing definition in multi-hop networks. This problem is faced with different methods in the literature, and here it is managed with a recently developed swarm intelligence algorithm called Social Network Optimization (SNO). In this paper, the routing definition in WSN is approached with two different problem codifications and solved with SNO and Particle Swarm Optimization. The first codification allows the optimization algorithm more degrees of freedom, resulting in a slower and in many cases sub-optimal solution. The second codification reduces the degrees of freedom, speeding significantly the optimization process and blocking in some cases the convergence toward the real best network configuration.

Sensor networks performance under harsh operating conditions is of growing concern, as redundant sensor networks rely on quasi-uniform distribution of nodes operability. Network operability is therefore hindered by localized energy depletion zones or environmental disturbs, affecting the whole network performance. In this paper, the authors introduce system metrics for measuring average or aggregate network performances as the topology degenerates and the environment changes throughout network lifetime. Through simulation of the network evolution, routing strategy and power management techniques are evaluated in terms of network performance in different environmental scenarios