6 - Short-term solar power forecasting based on satellite images

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to describe the use of satellite-derived surface solar irradiance (SSI) from the continuous optical image acquisition of geostationary meteorological satellites to produce solar power forecasting, typically for intraday time horizons from 0 to 6h ahead. Different approaches and products of satellite-based SSI retrieval used for solar power estimations are first presented. Then two families of satellite-based solar forecasting method are described:•The one considering only the temporal variability of SSI observed in quasi real-time by the satellite for a single location or an aggregated region.•The one exploiting the ability of the satellite to observe the correlated spatial and temporal variability of SSI (cloud motion vectors or statistical approaches).