Influence Of Meteorological Factors On Solar Power Utilization

Exploitation of solar power is severely restricted by meteorological factors like radiation,temperature,relative humidity and air quality.Efficiency of photovoltaic module is rather low under poor environment,which results in instability of solar power output and inaccuracy of forecast.Investors of photovoltaic power station cannot evaluate expected profit precisely;users of rooftop photovoltaic power station and solar thermal collector do not know whether they can earn back their cost and how long it takes;the power grid cannot forecast the influence of newly-accessed solar power source;all of these restricted the development of solar energy.It would be beneficial to site selection of solar projects and operation of solar devices,if influence of meteorological factors can be quantified.Power grid could also use this to forecast the output and optimize the dispatch.In this paper,the influence of meteorological factors on various solar power utilization methods are analyzed.The main contents are as follows:First,the mechanism that meteorological factors influence the photovoltaic power generation is analyzed,and the influence degrees are evaluated.Involved factors include radiation,air quality,temperature,relative humidity,wind velocity,spectral distribution of light and illumination intensity.They differ in influence degrees,and we focus on the main factors and verify their correlation with photovoltaic output.Then,based on data from solar power station and simulations using software,a quantitative model of influence of meteorological factors on photovoltaic efficiency is built,which can be used to calculate the change of photovoltaic efficiency corresponding to different meteorological factor combinations.Additionally solar heat and photothermoelectrics is involved,to construct an integrated model that considers a number of solar utilization methods.Finally,a series of suggestions are put forward,in the aspect of avoiding reduction of output owing to poor meteorological factors and construct an appropriate environment for solar devices.Basic requirements of meteorological factors for site selection and operation of solar projects are calculated.By analyzing meteorological factors of given site,it can be inferred whether this solar project can reach the estimated profit.Thus it can be helpful for all life cycle of solar projects,including site selection,construction,production and operation.To sum up,in this paper the influence of meteorological factors on solar power utilization is quantified.Based on the quantitative model,the utilization ratio of solar power and economic benefits of projects under different meteorological conditions are calculated,which can be useful for solar module application and promotion.