Simulation of large PV energy facilities with SAM HCPV and PV detailed models

Abstract

Here we compare the measured energy production of the solar photovoltaic (PV) energy facilities of Solar Star and Desert Sunlight with the values computed in National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) System Advisor Model (SAM), by using the SAM database for the typical weather, and the different models available, the high concentration photovoltaic (HCPV) model, as well as the PV detailed model. Both models are semi-empirical. The HCPV is the most sophisticated model, permitting the specification of a much larger number of parameters. The detailed PV model is less flexible. The comparison shows that SAM computes winter and summer energy productions that are much closer than what is shown by the experiments, dramatically underrating the seasonal variability. This is due to a solar resource for direct normal irradiance during winter and summer that is much closer to what is shown by other databases, such as Weather Spark, for their incident shortwave solar energy inclusive of seasonal variations, the elevation of the Sun above the horizon, and absorption by clouds and other atmospheric constituents. The contribution highlights the issue of the mostly missing validation of renewable energy tools, in needs of proper high-frequency simultaneous weather and plant data, both at the system and the level of the individual components, before their use for performance estimations.