Quartz Solar Forecast

The aim of the project is to build an open source PV forecast that is free and easy to use. Open Climate Fix also provide a commercial PV forecast, please get in touch at quartz.support@openclimatefix.org

The current model uses GFS or ICON NWPs to predict the solar generation at a site

from quartz_solar_forecast.forecast import run_forecast
from quartz_solar_forecast.pydantic_models import PVSite

# make input data
site = PVSite(latitude=51.75, longitude=-1.25, capacity_kwp=1.25)

# run model, uses ICON NWP data by default
predictions_df = run_forecast(site=site, ts='2023-11-01')

Which gives the following prediction

Model

The model is a gradient boosted tree model and uses 9 NWP variables. It is trained on 25,000 PV sites with over 5 years of PV history, which is available here. The training of this model is handled in pv-site-prediction TODO - we need to benchmark this forecast.

The 9 NWP variables, from Open-Meteo documentation, are mentioned above with their appropariate units.

1. Visibility (km), or vis: Distance at which objects can be clearly seen. Can affect the amount of sunlight reaching solar panels.
2. Wind Speed at 10 meters (km/h), or si10 : Wind speed measured at a height of 10 meters above ground level. Important for understanding weather conditions and potential impacts on solar panels.
3. Temperature at 2 meters (°C), or t : Air temperature measure at 2 meters above the ground. Can affect the efficiency of PV systems.
4. Precipiration (mm), or prate : Precipitation (rain, snow, sleet, etc.). Helps to predict cloud cover and potentiel reductions in solar irradiance.
5. Shortwave Radiation (W/m²), or dswrf: Solar radiation in the shortwave spectrum reaching the Earth's surface. Measure of the potential solar energy available for PV systems.
6. Direct Radiation (W/m²) or dlwrf: Longwave (infrared) radiation emitted by the Earth back into the atmosphere. confirm it is correct
7. Cloud Cover low (%), or lcc: Percentage of the sky covered by clouds at low altitudes. Impacts the amount of solar radiation reachign the ground, and similarly the PV system.
8. Cloud Cover mid (%), or mcc : Percentage of the sky covered by clouds at mid altitudes.
9. Cloud Cover high (%), or lcc : Percentage of the sky covered by clouds at high altitude

Known restrictions

• The model is trained on UK MetOffice NWPs, but when running inference we use GFS data from Open-meteo. The differences between GFS and UK MetOffice, could led to some odd behaviours.
• It looks like the GFS data on Open-Meteo is only available for free for the last 3 months.

Abbreviations

• NWP: Numerical Weather Predictions
• GFS: Global Forecast System
• PV: Photovoltaic

Contribution

We welcome other models

Contributors ✨

Thanks goes to these wonderful people (emoji key):

Peter Dudfield 💻

Megawattz 🤔

EdFage 📖 💻

Chloe Pilon Vaillancourt 📖

This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind welcome!