Forecasting solar power intermittency using ground-based cloud imaging

Abstract

We report progress towards developing methods to forecast solar-power intermittency due to clouds using analysis of digital images taken with a ground-based, suntracking camera. We show preliminary results of blockmotion estimation analysis applied to a sequence of sky images recorded in Tucson, Arizona. In addition, we discuss statistics of ramp rates and duration of cloudinduced intermittency based on the analysis of one year of photovoltaic power output data measured at one-second intervals for a 2-kW system.