Industrial Application of Synthetic Irradiance: Case Study of Solar Yield

Abstract

Industrial activity concerned with the profitability and safety of investments can be supported and promoted by research through the creation of new mathematical modelling approaches, and the quantification and mitigation of uncertainties. In recent years there has been increasing interest in the adoption of probabilistic approaches to assess sources of uncertainty in solar energy systems to estimate their feasibility, considering yield estimates, investments, operation and maintenance costs, and solar resource. In this context, the synthetic solar irradiance data set approach emerges as a promising tool to emulate the variability inherent to the solar resource in confident designs and feasibility analyses of these systems. Chapter 5 deals with the requirements of the industry with respect to synthetic solar data, and how such requirements are currently addressed during the main stages of development of solar projects. We recap methods for benchmarking the success of generated synthetic irradiance, reviewing statistical indicators for that purpose. We discuss and compare the use of single annual and multiple synthetic annual data sets of solar irradiance in the first stages of solar projects, and present their uses in a case study application in a Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plant with a similar configuration to a well-known operational Parabolic Trough (PT) plant located in Spain.