In recent years, with the advent of globalization, the world is witnessing a steep rise in its energy consumption. The world is transforming itself into an industrial and knowledge society from an agricultural one which in turn makes the growth, energy intensive resulting in emissions. Energy modeling and energy planning is vital for the future economic prosperity and environmental security. Soft computing techniques such as fuzzy logic, neural networks, genetic algorithms are being adopted in energy modeling to precisely map the energy systems. In this paper, an attempt has been made to review the applications of fuzzy logic based models in renewable energy systems namely solar, wind, bio-energy, micro-grid and hybrid applications. It is found that fuzzy based models are extensively used in recent years for site assessment, for installing of photovoltaic/wind farms, power point tracking in solar photovoltaic/wind, optimization among conflicting criteria. The review indicates that fuzzy based models provide realistic estimates.

Applications of fuzzy logic in renewable energy systems – A review

Access to electric power supply has always had a significant role in promoting improvements in all the society sectors, nevertheless nowadays 1.3 billion of people still do not have electricity access. Moreover, most of them live in rural areas of developing countries which are often isolated, scattered populated and characterized by poor infrastructure and services. In this situation, the growing consideration towards the target of universal access to energy has emphasized the role of rural electrification, and off-grid small-scale generation represents one of the most appropriate options. As a consequence, the scientific literature has devoted attention to this topic with a large number of papers. In this frame, the present analysis focuses on off-grid systems for rural electrification and provides a general framework to this topic and an analytical review of the literature. The work is based on the review of more than 350 papers mainly published from 2000 to 2014 within selected journals, and it is organized in two sections. In the first one we describe the role of small-scale generation systems throughout the process of electrification, the main features of rural areas and their typical energy uses, and we propose a new comprehensive taxonomy for off-grid systems for rural electrification. In the second one we develop an extensive review of the selected literature according to the proposed classification and to five main research areas: Technology: layout and components; Models and methods for simulation and sizing; Techno-economic feasibility analyses and sustainability analyses; Case studies analyses; Policy analyses. The work results in a comprehensive review which organizes and capitalizes the main fundamentals of the addressed topic and provides elements to get acquainted with the literature.

Off-grid systems for rural electrification in developing countries: Definitions, classification and a comprehensive literature review

Improving the effectiveness of a photovoltaic water pumping system by spraying water over the front of photovoltaic cells

The research developments with renewable energy source water pumping systems (RESWPSs) are reviewed in this paper. The reported investigations are categorized into five major groups as follows: (i) solar photovoltaic water pumping systems (SPWPSs), (ii) solar thermal water pumping systems (STWPSs), (iii) wind energy water pumping systems (WEWPSs), (iv) biomass water pumping systems (BWPSs) and (v) hybrid renewable energy water pumping systems (HREWPSs). More than a hundred published articles related to RESWPSs are briefly reviewed. Additionally, the limitations with RESWPSs and further research needs are described. This paper concludes that renewable energy sources (RESs) play a vital role in reducing the consumption of conventional energy sources and its environmental impacts for water pumping applications.

Renewable energy source water pumping systems—A literature review

Achour Betka

Papers

Optimal tracking and robust power control of the DFIG wind turbine

Performance optimization of a photovoltaic induction motor pumping system

Fuzzy-predictive direct power control implementation of a grid connected photovoltaic system, associated with an active power filter

An improved efficiency of fuzzy logic control of PMBLDC for PV pumping system

Optimization of a photovoltaic pumping system based on the optimal control theory