Improved grids spanning countries will enable regional utilities to compensate for extreme weather events which can impact productivity of renewable energy generation plants, according to data outfit Solargis.
Insufficient interconnection hampers the ability of neighbouring solar and wind rich regions to compensate for anomalous conditions in markets such as Spain during the recent winter period.
At the end of spring, a team from Solargis analysed monthly difference maps to find a 50% decrease in Spanish solar irradiance – the most extreme decrease since the beginning of their satellite-based records in 1994.
Contrastingly, Germany and the Balkans saw around 45% higher levels of solar irradiance during the month of March when compared to longer term averages.
With Spain one of Europe’s sunniest countries and with Germany looking to triple its solar energy capacity to 215GW, these significant deviations from average values “pose a challenge” to project developers and investors seeking to accurately calculate return on investment and support integration of solar into the continent’s grid, said Solargis.
Solargis CEO Marcel Suri said: “A new generation of forecasting models allows grid operators to maintain balance between variable and flexible energy sources through flexible trading and energy exchange.
“The digitalisation of our grids coupled with increased interconnectivity ultimately will allow larger generators to react faster and more efficiently to regional variability of renewables.”
“Controlling the weather is outside of our capabilities however, by looking at Europe as an interconnected, rather than country-specific, energy grid, there is the potential to balance out the market.”
Through an initiative with SERENDI-PV, Solargis is working towards improving short-term forecasting of aggregated PV power, energy evaluation and forecasting in the presence of snow, dust and extreme weather, “improving simulations, uncertainty reduction to support the creation of an effective, modern digitalised grid”.