Solar
Optimized Predictions
Improvement of Grid Integration from Electricity generated by Photovoltaic Systems via the Optimized Forecast and Real-time Estimation of Solar Power Production
The increasing development of photovoltaic systems requires power forecasts to be as accurate as possible along with the precise determination of current power production. Most importantly to transmission grid operators, but also to municipal utilities and distribution grid operators, exact data is needed in order to manage the integration of photovoltaic systems both technically and financially.
To achieve the above improvement, energy & meteo systems aims to enhance its forecasting system and measurement procedures for determining the current production. For this purpose, a 2.5-year research project was started in April 2011 which was conducted in cooperation with the transmission grid operators 50Hertz Transmission GmbH, Amprion GmbH, EnBW Transportnetze AG and Tennet TSO GmbH along with the solar inverter producer SMA Solar Technology AG and the Federal Ministry of the Environment.
- Methods of forecasting solar power for horizons spanning several hours to two days are to be optimized and significantly enhanced. In doing so, successful concepts from wind power forecasting will be carried over and adapted to the solar power forecast, such as the weather-dependent combination of weather models. Moreover, energy & meteo systems GmbH is developing, in cooperation with the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD), new physical-meteorological methods which deliver precise data even in special weather conditions such as during snowfall, partial overcasts and fog.
- An improved method for the online capturing of current production will increase the spatial resolution such that reliable measurements at the grid node level are available in the future. New methods of calculation will improve the real-time and reliable transmission of current measurements by compensating for transmission errors and missing values which can occur when measuring power for solar plants. For this project, the SMA Solar Technology AG has made anonymized measurement data available from over 24.000 photovoltaic systems nationwide. Furthermore, the weather and satellite data are also factored in to the calculations in order to take difficult weather situations such as snow and fog into account.
The new methods have been implemented during the project term and tested by the project partners TenneT TSO GmbH, EnBW Transportnetze AG, Amprion GmbH and 50Hertz Transmission.
The research project sponsored by the Federal German Ministry of the Environment was completed in October 2013.