  Context. Nanoflares are small impulsive bursts of energy that blend with and
possibly make up much of the solar background emission. Determining their
frequency and energy input is central to understanding the heating of the solar
corona. One method is to extrapolate the energy frequency distribution of
larger individually observed flares to lower energies. Only if the power law
exponent is greater than 2, is it considered possible that nanoflares
contribute significantly to the energy input.
  Aims. Time sequences of ultraviolet line radiances observed in the corona of
an active region are modelled with the aim of determining the power law
exponent of the nanoflare energy distribution.
  Methods. A simple nanoflare model based on three key parameters (the flare
rate, the flare duration time, and the power law exponent of the flare energy
frequency distribution) is used to simulate emission line radiances from the
ions Fe XIX, Ca XIII, and Si iii, observed by SUMER in the corona of an active
region as it rotates around the east limb of the Sun. Light curve pattern
recognition by an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) scheme is used to determine
the values.
  Results. The power law exponents, alpha 2.8, 2.8, and 2.6 for Fe XIX, Ca
XIII, and Si iii respectively.
  Conclusions. The light curve simulations imply a power law exponent greater
than the critical value of 2 for all ion species. This implies that if the
energy of flare-like events is extrapolated to low energies, nanoflares could
provide a significant contribution to the heating of active region coronae.
