Abstract

With electricity representing around 20% of the global energy demand, and increasing support for renewable sources of electricity, there is also an escalating need to improve solar forecasts to support power management. While considerable research has been directed to statistical methods to impro... Show moreWith electricity representing around 20% of the global energy demand, and increasing support for renewable sources of electricity, there is also an escalating need to improve solar forecasts to support power management. While considerable research has been directed to statistical methods to improve solar power forecasting, few have employed finite mixture distributions. A statistically-objective classification of the overall sky condition may lead to improved forecasts. Combining information from the synoptic driving conditions for daily variability with local processes controlling subdaily fluctuations could assist with forecast validation and enhancement where few observations are available. Gaussian mixture models provide a statistical learning approach to automatically identify prevalent sky conditions (clear, semi-cloudy, and cloudy) and explore associated weather patterns. Here a first stage in the development of such a model is presented: examining whether there is sufficient information in the large-scale environment to identify days with clear, semi-cloudy, or cloudy conditions. A three-component Gaussian distribution is developed that reproduces the observed multimodal peaks in sky clearness indices, and their temporal distribution. Posterior probabilities from the fitted mixture distributions are used to identify periods of clear, partially-cloudy, and cloudy skies. Composites of low-level (850 hPa) humidity and winds for each of the mixture components reveal three patterns associated with the typical synoptic conditions governing the sky clarity, and hence, potential solar power. Show less