SolarAnywhere® 2022 updates: industry-first features improving PV modeling accuracy

Each year Clean Power Research® makes updates to SolarAnywhere® to continue our tradition of providing the solar industry and utilities with the world’s best solar data and intelligence services. This year’s releases include:

• Global, easy-to-access snow and soiling loss estimates
• Data accuracy improvements with SolarAnywhere V3.6
• New High-resolution data with True Dynamics™ to enable higher-accuracy sub-hourly modeling
• Streamlined integrations with PV modeling programs

Global, easy-to-access snow and soiling loss estimates

We’ve integrated SolarAnywhere’s high-fidelity global weather data with community-trusted models to give users easy access to snow and soiling loss estimates.

Typical Year subscribers can now generate monthly average (12×1) snow and soiling losses using the data website, for no additional cost! With this update, developers and independent engineers can easily identify project locations with increased risk from snow and soiling. Monthly average loss estimates can be used with third-party PV modeling programs to make yield estimates more site-specific and data driven.

Selecting Average Snow and Soiling Losses in the SolarAnywhere Data Website

Solar asset managers may use the new capability to improve performance benchmarking for their solar fleets. Time-series PV simulations including loss estimates are available through the SolarAnywhere API with Sites and SystemCheck® licenses. Click the links below to learn more.

Accuracy improvements with Version 3.6

Version 3.6 (V3.6) is officially available. This year’s release improves model calibration and adds 2021 to the V3.6 Typical Year dataset. Our validation is freshly updated through year 2021 and includes 1,074 site-years of validation, globally!

PV modeling improvements with new, industry-first High-Resolution Data with True Dynamics™

SolarAnywhere Data Sites licenses within the Continental U.S. can now be upgraded to High Resolution. With the upgrade, users can generate 2-plus years of solar data at 5-minute, 500-meter nominal native resolution on demand—a first for the solar industry. The full resolution GOES satellite data reveals the solar resource intermittency and is the best possible reference—i.e., source of truth—for sub-hourly solar models.

High-resolution data customers also have access to True Dynamics™, a unique methodology for preparing satellite images for sub-hourly analysis. With True Dynamics, SolarAnywhere high-resolution solar data is augmented with statistical techniques to behave more like ground-based measurements of real sunlight, for example exceeding the clear-sky curve as seen below.

SolarAnywhere High-resolution Data

Using SolarAnywhere High-resolution solar data with True Dynamics improves the accuracy of solar energy assessment. In internal testing, 5-minute simulations with True Dynamics data reduced clipping loss errors by more than 90% versus hourly data for high DC:AC scenarios. The data is also valuable for assessing power ramps and smoothing requirements.

Streamlined integrations with PV modeling programs

Did you know? SolarAnywhere Typical Year Unlimited customers can start using the 1-click weather download in PlantPredict at no additional cost for up to 200 locations per year. What’s more, integrations with PVSyst and RatedPower are coming soon! The integrations make it easier than ever to import bankable weather data for your projects into your PV simulation program of choice. Visit our support center to learn how to get your API key.