THE IMPACT OF SOLAR UNCERTAINTY ON PROJECT FINANCEABILITY: MITIGATING ENERGY RISK THROUGH ON-SITE MONITORING

摘要

As projects increase in size and installed cost, a greater emphasis is being placed on reducing the uncertainty assigned when evaluating a project's long-term performance. For 11 locations, at least one year of high-quality ground measurements were used to estimate the long-term solar resource and associated uncertainty. In parallel, the long-term solar resource and uncertainty were estimated using available modeled data. These results were quantified and evaluated to determine how the availability of on-site data affects the uncertainty in the long-term solar resource. Results from this study indicate a difference in estimated solar resource of up to 6% when using on-site measurements compared to satellite-modeled data, and corresponding to a general reduction in uncertainty of approximately 2% to 6%.