Senior Data Scientist Power Factors Larkspur, California
Presentation Description: As renewables portfolios increasingly include both wind and solar plants, asset managers and performance analysts need to be able to understand the KPIs related to both technologies. This presentation will provide an overview of shared aspects and key differences that must be considered. Finally, we will showcase the potential for lessons learned between wind and solar.
At first glance, the only similarity between wind and solar is that they are renewable energy sources. The differences are easy to spot: for example, "yield" is measured in kWh in wind and kW in solar … There are major differences in the quantity and quality of data too. Each wind turbine has its own anemometer, but there will often only be a single pyranometer per PV site. Solar plants are also typically poorly instrumented below the inverter level. This increases the uncertainty in expected power calculations and can lead to particular data analysis challenges. There is some overlap though. For instance, the IEC has standards for availability for Wind (IEC 61400-26) and PV (IEC 63019), which share many of the same general concepts such as the informational model, availability and reliability metrics. Even here, key differences remain. Solar-specific examples include addressing the availability impact of component level outages, and nuances regarding the absence of resource at night.
Despite these differences, it is possible to analyze solar plant performance in a similar level of detail as a wind farm, if the site is sufficiently instrumented and the analysis is customized to account for the differences shown.
Methodology:
Learning Objectives:
understand the KPIs related to both solar and wind technologies.
call out shared aspects between wind and solar as well as the key differences that must be considered.
understand the potential for lessons learned between wind and solar.
