Document Type : Research Articles

Author

• Hamid Reza Sezavar

Qom University of Technology, Qom, Iran

Abstract

This paper presents a comparative study on the application of artificial intelligence for optimizing External Lightning Protection Systems (ELPS) in photovoltaic power (PV) plants. The research addresses the critical need for advanced protection systems in solar installations, which are particularly vulnerable to lightning strikes due to their expansive outdoor configurations. Through a detailed comparative analysis, the study evaluates multiple AI approaches, including metaheuristic algorithms and machine learning models. The investigation reveals that metaheuristic algorithms often have lower accuracy compared to modern AI techniques. All comparisons are based on a multi-level optimization framework, systematically addressing air termination design, grounding system configuration, and overall system integration. The results show superiority in sensitivity analysis in the transformer model. Compared to other models, the random forest (RF) model, along with the artificial neural network (ANN) model, has a higher speed in data analysis. However, physics-informed neural networks (PINN) achieve remarkable improvements, delivering 93% protection coverage with only 3.2% grounding error while significantly reducing design convergence times.

Keywords

• ELPS
• Grounding electrode
• Lightning protection
• PV station
• Multi-stage AI

Main Subjects

• Power systems