Validation of Synthetic Solar Irradiance Data

Abstract

Solar irradiance data synthesis aims to generate realistic data for many engineering applications when obtaining real-world data can be costly and often entirely impractical. Once synthetic irradiance data is generated, its validity needs to be established before use. Many validation approaches in the literature examine the statistical equivalence between the generated synthetic data and real ground observation data, but there is no official standard with which to validate. This raises questions about which methods are the most suitable and should be adopted for synthetic solar irradiance methodologies. A critical finding is that a varied approach to validation is necessary, as each intended application of synthetic solar irradiance will prioritize certain aspects over others. In this chapter, a review of the main existing approaches for robust validation of synthetic solar irradiance data is presented, as well as some insights into the metrics.