Release Notes

NEW FEATURES:

• Support of GTI measurements with tracker mountings:
  • Time reference check (TRC)
  • Physical limits tests
  • Visualizations for GTI (clear-sky lines in time series plots, kt-graphs in TRC dialogue and Interactive QC Advanced dialogue)
• Extended GTI configuration in metadata to specify tracker mountings systems
• Extended definition of test groups for automatic quality control in solar radiation
• Added dataset validation and automatic correction of invalid GTI configuration and test groups in main window
• New content in PDF reports:
  • Quality control summary table
  • Test groups table
  • Consistency plots
• New Demo dataset with GTI measurements

IMPROVEMENTS:

• Optimization of PDF report processing
• Improved usability while importing flags from other dataset (part of Interactive QC and Interactive QC Advanced)

BUG FIXES:

• Various bug fixes

We have improved the frequency of our service for sites in GOES satellite regions (Americas and Pacific), delivering new data predictions every 10 minutes. Before, we were only delivering updates every 30 minutes. With the new data infrastructure, we were also able to significantly shorten the delay and the forecast service is now faster.

We have extended our nowcast model in the GOES satellite region and from now users of Solargis Forecast service can receive updates for any site in North and South America and Pacific islands. A new nowcasting algorithm was used for these regions which, among other upgrades, improves cloud motion extrapolation and provides nowcasts with reduced uncertainty.

After several model improvements across our data calculator chain, the accuracy of historical time series for the GOES region (covering Americas and Pacific islands) has been improved. The main changes are:

• Use of the highest granularity data available as an input from satellite instruments (up to 10-minute frequency) from year 2019 onwards
• Use of advanced preprocessing algorithms, removing spatial noise and achieving smoother pixel transitions
• Additional terrain corrections, related to better positional accuracy, especially in mountainous regions and high satellite viewing angles
• Improvements in cloud/snow discrimination and cloud index post-processing
  More accurate calculations of sun position
• Inclusion of solar irradiance changes due to solar eclipse events.

Due to this series of improvements, small variations in data values are expected under this new model, in comparison to the Solargis older models used in climData deliveries. Updated bias and RMSD statistics are published in our interactive maps here.

Possibility to change the owner of Prospect projects. Now each Prospect user can transfer his projects to his colleagues within the same Customer account (Company).

• GTI automatic quality control with fixed mounting in Solar Radiation.
• Visualizations for GTI (clear-sky lines in time series plots, kt-graphs in Time Reference and Interactive QC Advanced)
• Polygon selector in Interactive QC and Interactive QC Advanced (in heatmaps only)
• Custom user text for Quality assessment summary
• Added option for saving graphs as PNG file
• Selection of columns to export in Export CSV

Evaluate Professional plan includes new parameters:

• WG - Wind gusts at surface [m/s]

• PREC - Precipitation total [kg/m²]

Now, to increase the likelihood of finding better candidate months for TMY Pxx (P90, P75, etc.), the original data is split into smaller chunks of 15 days, and many candidate months are generated by mutual combinations of these smaller data chunks. The methodology for TMY P50 remains unchanged.

Read more here.

We have released the minor update of SG - 1.10.4:

Prospect

• Notification about available data between 60° and 65° latitude. 

• Copy to clipboard feature has been added to geographical coordinates

Customer Admin

• Customer invitation process has been improved

TMY data now available via API in 4 different output format types: SOLARGIS_JSON, SOLARGIS_CSV, SAM, HELIOSCOPE.