Best practices

All Solar industry players need to simulate their power plant designs and financial plans at some point. To do so against summarized conditions given by data products like Typical Meteorological Years has been common until recently. However, running energy simulations using more realistic conditions described by Multi-Year Time Series of data is recommended to reduce project risk and evaluate all scenarios.

Solar irradiance modeling involves computing the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface. During eclipses, the moon obstructs solar radiation, leading to a temporary reduction in irradiance.

Depending on the source and desired application, solar data can have distinctive temporal resolutions, such as sub-hourly (1-, 2-, 5-, 10-, 15-, 30-minute) or hourly intervals. But how are you supposed to know the difference, and why should you care?

One of the key challenges for solar project financiers is to assess the expected energy production and revenue of a project over its lifetime, considering the uncertainties and fluctuations of the solar resource.

To design optimal PV projects, designers must consult 1-minute data which paint the most accurate picture of a plants’ PV power potential and output, while providing increased financial certainty to solar investors.

An increasing number of solar PV plant developers, operators and owners require high frequency data (1-min) to make qualitative improvements throughout the entire lifecycle of a solar project.

Two years ago, Storm Uri unleashed a deep freeze over Texas, causing widespread power outages that affected more than 4.5 million people. The drastic changes in temperature during the storm not only reduced natural gas production and froze wind turbines across the State, but also had widespread impacts on solar plants.

Storing and dispatching power at the optimal time requires an extremely granular understanding of how much power a project is generating both now and in the immediate future. Developers, operators, and owners increasingly require high-frequency (1-minute) weather and solar irradiance data that enables them to make quick, accurate and financially effective decisions.

As solar projects grow in size and number, the challenges of integrating them successfully into national grids increase as well. The intermittency of solar energy requires careful management, and solar developers that under- or over-produce face curtailment and penalties from grid operators.

March 2022 saw Spain suffer its biggest solar irradiance decline in 28 years. By contrast, Germany and the Balkans saw 45% higher levels of solar irradiance. These anomalies highlight need to invest in effective interconnections and forecasting to support European energy independence.

Designing and operating a large-scale solar project without fully understanding its potential output inevitably increases risks throughout its lifecycle. One part of the solution for developers is validated solar resource data calculated through satellite-based models, helping produce accurate energy yield calculations.

A key goal of the Growing Pains series is to highlight the role that reliable solar resource data plays in ensuring the success of large-scale solar projects.