Performance Assessment of Intra-Day Solar Irradiation Forecast in Uruguay Using Satellite Cloud Motion Vectors
Abstract
Reliable solar irradiation forecast is increasingly important for solar PV power dispatch. Satellite-based forecasting methods are suitable for the relevant intra-day time horizons. In this work we implement and assess the performance of the satellite cloud motion vector forecasting technique proposed by Lorenz et al. (2004) for the Uruguayan territory. The evaluation is done for the hourly prediction of the solar global irradiation at ground level both for site and regional forecast. Positive forecasting skills (FS) are obtained for the 2-hours and above time horizons. The FS peaks at +8.4% (3-hours ahead) for site forecast and at +27.5% (4-hours ahead) for regional forecast. For 1-hour ahead the performance is similar to the persistence procedure, with FS between +-3.2%. The CMV method's performance for regional forecast is significantly better than for site forecast.