CPV Energy Production Analysis

Abstract

This work describes a simple method that predicts the CPV energy production (EP) by using Global Horizontal Irradiation (GHI) data from weather stations and the PVGIS database. To establish and examine this prediction model, we analyze data from four CPV installations of different radiation conditions in Spain. The EP prediction involves two steps. First, since Direct Normal Irradiation (DNI) is not widely measured, it is estimated based on real‐time GHI and PVGIS data over an average year. Second, the EP is extrapolated as a linear function of the estimated DNI. This is based on the fact that the real EP data from these CPV installations shows very good linearity with respect to the estimated DNI. Moreover, this characteristic does not change when moving from a low radiation location to a high radiation one. Thus, our proposed model uses GHI data from nearby weather stations and the PVGIS database and predicts the performance of CPV installations at any location. Our prediction closely matches the real EP. For the installations we have studied, the difference between the predicted and the real annual EP is less than 2% and the average difference between the predicted and the real monthly EP is in the range of 5–16%.