Overview of Irradiance and Photovoltaic Power Prediction

Power generation from solar and wind energy systems is highly variable due to its dependence on meteorological conditions. With the constantly increasing contribution of photovoltaic (PV) power to the electricity mix, reliable predictions of the expected PV power production are getting more and more important as a basis for management and operation strategies. We give an overview of different approaches for solar irradiance and PV power prediction, including numerical weather predictions for forecast horizons of several days, very short-term forecasts based on the detection of cloud motion in satellite or ground-based sky images, and statistical methods to optimize and combine different data sources as well as methods for PV simulation and upscaling to regional PV power predictions. Evaluation results for selected irradiance and power prediction schemes show the benefit of different approaches for different timescales.