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Title: On the spatial decorrelation of stochastic solar resource variability at long timescales

Journal Article · · Solar Energy
 [1];  [2]
  1. Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States)
  2. Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States); Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
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Understanding the spatial and temporal characteristics of solar resource variability is important because it helps inform the discussion surrounding the merits of geographic dispersion and subsequent electrical interconnection of photovoltaics as part of a portfolio of future solutions for coping with this variability. The unpredictable resource variability arising from the stochastic nature of meteorological phenomena (from the passage of clouds to the movement of weather systems) is of most concern for achieving high PV penetration because unlike the passage of seasons or the shift from day to night, the uncertainty makes planning a challenge. A suitable proxy for unpredictable solar resource variability at any given location is the series of variations in the clearness index from one time period to the next because the clearness index is largely independent of the predictable influence of solar geometry. At timescales shorter than one day, the correlation between these variations in clearness index at pairs of distinct geographic locations decreases with spatial extent and with timescale. As the aggregate variability across N decorrelated locations decreases as 1/√N, identifying the distance required to achieve this decorrelation is critical to quantifying the expected reduction in variability from geographic dispersion.

Research Organization:
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
DGE-1144155
OSTI ID:
1221757
Report Number(s):
BNL-108386-2015-JA; YN0100000
Journal Information:
Solar Energy, Vol. 117, Issue C; ISSN 0038-092X
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 27 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (12)

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Impacts of long-timescale variability in solar resources at high PV penetrations: Quantification conference June 2012
Long-distance interconnection as solar resource intermittency solution: Optimizing the use of energy storage and the geographic dispersion + interconnection of solar generating facilities conference June 2013
Spatial & Temporal Characteristics of Solar Radiation Variability conference January 2011
Parameterization of site-specific short-term irradiance variability journal July 2011
Short-term irradiance variability: Preliminary estimation of station pair correlation as a function of distance journal August 2012
Fluctuations in instantaneous clearness index: Analysis and statistics journal February 2007

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