Introduction to Validation
The SolarFarmer simulations are continuously validated against production data from operating PV plants. The validation process consists of several steps:
- Cleaning measured data to remove erroneous values, periods of site maintenance, etc.
- Setup of the PV plant model in SolarFarmer, matching the actual layout as closely as possible, and using the solar resource data measured at the site as simulation input
- Comparison of the modelled and measured AC power output on time series basis
The results presented here are based on production data periods from several PV sites where data are ranging from 0.9 to 2.2 years with a resolution of 60 or 5 minutes.
Papers and Presentations
SolarFarmer validation has been the topic of several papers and presentations which are listed below.
- "Validation of the Solarfarmer Software with Operational Data" by A. Neubert, M.A. Mikofski, M. Hamer, P. Rainey, in 37th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference (EU PVSEC) and Exhibition, pp. 1621 - 1625, 2020, DOI: 10.4229/EUPVSEC20202020-5CV.4.10