07/20/2021
By Sokny Long

The Francis College of Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, invites you to attend a Master’s thesis defense by Musaab Mohammed Ali on “Tracking the Output of Distributed Solar PV Fleet Using Selected Smart Inverter Data.”

MSE Candidate: Musaab Mohammed Ali
Defense Date: Tuesday, August 3, 2021
Time (from/to): 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. EST
Location: This will be a virtual defense via Zoom. Those interested in attending should contact the student musaab_mohammedali@student.uml.edu and committee advisor, yuzhang_lin@uml.edu, at least 24 hours prior to the defense to request access to the meeting.

Committee Chair (Advisor): Yuzhang Lin, Assistant Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering, UMass Lowell

Committee Members:
Hongfu Liu, Assistant Professor, Computer Science, Brandies University
Walter Thomas, Associate Teaching Professor, Mechanical Engineering, UMass Lowell
Xinfang Jin, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering, UMass Lowell

Brief Abstract:
Accurate power output tracking of a large fleet of distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) systems using only the power output of a few selected smart inverter data from the same fleet can help eliminate the overall cost associated with the PV fleet’s monitoring infrastructure. The power output of the PV fleet is tracked using the long short-term memory (LSTM) deep learning algorithm. The power output of the few selected smart inverter is used as an input to the LSTM model and the output features of the LSTM is used for tracking the power output of all PV sites within the fleet. The selection of the smart inverters is accomplished by two methods, random selection and clustering, and the results of the two methods are compared using the root mean square error (RMSE).

All interested students and faculty members are invited to attend the online defense via remote access.