Estimation of solar irradiance using ground-based whole sky imagers

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how ground-based sky imagers can be used to accurately estimate solar irradiance by analyzing cloud coverage and movement, validated against weather station data.

Contribution

The study introduces a method leveraging high-resolution sky images from WSIs to improve solar irradiance estimation, integrating image analysis with ground-based measurements.

Findings

WSIs provide detailed cloud information for irradiance estimation

The method shows good agreement with weather station data

Enhanced spatial and temporal resolution in solar radiation monitoring

Abstract

Ground-based whole sky imagers (WSIs) can provide localized images of the sky of high temporal and spatial resolution, which permits fine-grained cloud observation. In this paper, we show how images taken by WSIs can be used to estimate solar radiation. Sky cameras are useful here because they provide additional information about cloud movement and coverage, which are otherwise not available from weather station data. Our setup includes ground-based weather stations at the same location as the imagers. We use their measurements to validate our methods.