Best practices

Bad data in equals bad data out. This well-known phrase is very relevant in a context of technical design and energy simulation of photovoltaic (PV) power plants. Most solar companies understand this and are carefully evaluating uncertainty of solar resource data used for feasibility purposes ... Read article

To assess the solar resource or energy yield potential of a site, we model the solar resource/energy yield using best available information and methods. The resulting estimate is the P50 estimate, or in other words, the “best estimate”. P50 is essentially a statistical level of confidence suggesting that we expect to exceed the predicted solar resource/energy yield 50% of the time. However, ... Read article

The process of estimating solar radiation data uncertainty can be sometimes unclear. We've tried to summarise in 4 simple steps how model validation statistics can be used for determining uncertainty of model estimates for P75, P90, and other Pxx estimates. Read article

Just as there are horses for courses, different forecasting techniques are more suitable depending on the intended forecast lead time. Ground-based and satellite-based methods offer best forecast skill for forecast lead time of few hours ahead. Beyond that NWP models offer best forecast skill. A combination of models provides better forecast than any individual forecast model. Read article

Accurate solar resource data is needed for planning, engineering and financing of a solar energy project. Read article

It is widely accepted that high-standard pyranometers operated under rigorously controlled conditions are to be used for bankable performance assessment of photovoltaic (PV) power systems. Asset managers, O&M providers, and owners of PV portfolios are increasingly relying on satellite-derived solar resource data. Read article

On Monday 23 Feb 2015 at 16:00 UTC, Marcel Suri (Solargis) and Tom Hoff (Clean Power Research) present the use of weather satellite data to estimate the solar energy resource and availability and accuracy of derived data products. Read article