Probabilistic description of short-term cloud dynamics from rapid sampling of the solar spectral irradiance

Nick Anderson; Viktar Tatsiankou; Karin Hinzer; Richard Beal; Henry Schriemer

doi:10.1117/12.2616231

4 March 2022 Probabilistic description of short-term cloud dynamics from rapid sampling of the solar spectral irradiance

Nick Anderson, Viktar Tatsiankou, Karin Hinzer, Richard Beal, Henry Schriemer

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 11996, Physics, Simulation, and Photonic Engineering of Photovoltaic Devices XI; 119960B (2022) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2616231
Event: SPIE OPTO, 2022, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

Solar irradiance variability due to stochastic cloud dynamics can cause unwanted fluctuations in the output voltage of photovoltaic (PV) modules. These dynamics must in particular be understood at very-short and short time scales if grid interconnection and generation/load balance requirements are to be maintained for PV distributed across the grid edge. Using a recently-created database for Ottawa, Canada, a 6-month longitudinal study was conducted with a specific focus on cloud dynamics. A spectral pyranometer was used to derive full-range spectral and broadband global horizontal irradiance under all sky conditions every 250 ms. Exploiting the infrared (IR) measurement channel of this software-augmented multi-filter radiometer allowed the cloud dynamics to be probed across time scales ranging from the subsecond to minutes. Seven distinct sky conditions were self-consistently determined without sky imaging. Probability distributions, established via kernel density estimates (KDE), allowed the statistical dependence of these conditions on the spectral clear-sky index to be found. The stochastic nature of the spectral irradiance variability was probed using spectral clear-sky index increments, over time steps that were found to span three distinct variability regimes.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Nick Anderson, Viktar Tatsiankou, Karin Hinzer, Richard Beal, and Henry Schriemer "Probabilistic description of short-term cloud dynamics from rapid sampling of the solar spectral irradiance", Proc. SPIE 11996, Physics, Simulation, and Photonic Engineering of Photovoltaic Devices XI, 119960B (4 March 2022); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2616231

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