Weather Information "Highly Useful" for Solar Energy Load and Production Forecasting

Weather Stations for Solar Power Monitoring
Cleanspark, a microgrid company with controls for distributed energy resource management systems, uses a Solar 2 Weather Station from Columbia Weather Systems to give context to their performance metrics.
They use weather-corrected solar generation data, based on measured irradiance from the weather station, versus modeled irradiance when calculating actual performance versus modeled for contractual obligations. Additionally, weather data “will be the basis of certain alarm conditions as well as reporting,” according to Bryan Huber, chief operations officer. “Weather information is highly useful for load and production forecasting.”
Based on the CWS’s flagship Capricorn model, the Solar 2 Weather Station includes barometric pressure, mechanical wind speed and direction sensors, and temperature and humidity sensors housed in a radiation shield, in addition to panel temperature and solar radiation sensors. Individual sensors allow for optimal sensor placement.
A custom sensor configuration can combine a variety of sensor options including up to four temperature sensors and two solar radiation sensors.
Our new White Paper "Environmental Monitoring for Optimizing Solar Power Generation Efficiency” describes additional options for weather monitoring for the solar energy industry.


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