Predictive Power of Machine Learning for Optimizing Solar Water Heater Performance: The Potential Application of High-Throughput Screening

Abstract

Predicting the performance of solar water heater (SWH) is challenging due to the complexity of the system. Fortunately, knowledge-based machine learning can provide a fast and precise prediction method for SWH performance. With the predictive power of machine learning models, we can further solve a more challenging question: How to cost-effectively design a high-performance SWH? Here, we summarize our recent studies and propose a general framework of SWH design using a machine learning-based high-throughput screening (HTS) method. Design of water-in-glass evacuated tube solar water heater (WGET-SWH) is selected as a case study to show the potential application of machine learning-based HTS to the design and optimization of solar energy systems.