Download Session Presentations

The System Planning Working Group will hold an online session on Thursday, August 6 at 4:00 p.m. (eastern US). Below you’ll find a brief description of the session along with a list of panelists. Following presentations from each of the panelists, we’ll hold a brief Q&A session.

Reminder: ESIG Working Groups and these online sessions are only open to current members of ESIG

Improving Solar Resource Assessment Accuracy

System planners require long-term forecasts of resource and energy availability to ensure system adequacy. The modeling methods used to inform solar energy assessments have evolved considerably with technology advancements in solar panels, inverters, and batteries; and better understanding and characterization of loss factors related to system efficiency. At this System Planning Working Group Meeting, we will discuss how these advances have created a need to consider sub-hourly irradiance in estimating long-term energy assessments.

Industry-standard solar resource assessment methods assume hourly-resolution modeling, which typically underestimate inverter clipping and overestimate AC generation due to irradiance variability within an hour. While the bias magnitude depends on site location and layout configuration, it will significantly impact the accuracy of solar only and solar + storage analyses compared to real-world operations.  Panelists will present strategies that can be used to diagnose and correct for the hourly modeling bias, as well as discuss the advantages of higher temporal resolution simulations.

ESIG is experimenting with new ways to engage its members as we transition to more virtual meetings. Working Groups are normally highly interactive. We will be trying out several approaches to making the virtual meeting more interactive. This will include using the Slido platform for the Q&A portion of the session and utilizing breakout rooms at the end of the meeting for those who may want to have follow up conversations with any of the panelists.

To participate in the Q&A session on Slido during the event, please use this link.

Working Group Chair & Session Chair: Aaron Bloom, Director, New Product R&D, NextEra Analytics

Panelists:

Correcting for Intra-Hourly Irradiance Variability Bias in Solar Energy Assessments
Kristen Bradford, Principal Research Scientist, NextEra Analytics

Janine Freeman, Senior Engineer, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

Overestimating output in hourly models due to high DC:AC ratios and solar variability: an introduction
Will Hobbs, Research Engineer in R&D, Southern Company

Energy Yield Corrections for Hourly Inputs in Climates with Solar Variability
Rounak Kharait, Director, Solar Energy Assessments, DNV GL Energy USA, Inc.

Aaron Bloom

Kristen Bradford

Janine Freeman

Will Hobbs

Rounak Kharait