Development of a sky imaging system for short-term solar power forecasting
Open Access
- 20 February 2015
- journal article
- Published by Copernicus GmbH in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
- Vol. 8 (2), 875-890
- https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-875-2015
Abstract
To facilitate the development of solar power forecasting algorithms based on ground-based visible wavelength remote sensing, we have developed a high dynamic range (HDR) camera system capable of providing hemispherical sky imagery from the circumsolar region to the horizon at a high spatial, temporal, and radiometric resolution. The University of California, San Diego Sky Imager (USI) captures multispectral, 16 bit, HDR images as fast as every 1.3 s. This article discusses the system design and operation in detail, provides a characterization of the system dark response and photoresponse linearity, and presents a method to evaluate noise in high dynamic range imagery. The system is shown to have a radiometrically linear response to within 5% in a designated operating region of the sensor. Noise for HDR imagery is shown to be very close to the fundamental shot noise limit. The complication of directly imaging the sun and the impact on solar power forecasting is also discussed. The USI has performed reliably in a hot, dry environment, a tropical coastal location, several temperate coastal locations, and in the great plains of the United States.Keywords
This publication has 27 references indexed in Scilit:
- Comparison of Solar Power Output Forecasting Performance of the Total Sky Imager and the University of California, San Diego Sky ImagerEnergy Procedia, 2014
- Predicting solar irradiance with all-sky image features via regressionSolar Energy, 2013
- Comparison of Cloud Cover from All-Sky Imager and Meteorological ObserverJournal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 2012
- Looking skyward to study ecosystem carbon dynamicsEos, 2012
- Intra-hour forecasting with a total sky imager at the UC San Diego solar energy testbedSolar Energy, 2011
- Cloud and radiance measurements with the VIS/NIR Daylight Whole Sky Imager at Lindenberg (Germany)Meteorologische Zeitschrift, 2005
- Multiple View Geometry in Computer VisionPublished by Cambridge University Press (CUP) ,2004
- Recovering high dynamic range radiance maps from photographsPublished by Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) ,1997
- Studies of the Woodland Light Climate: I. The Photographic Computation of Light ConditionsJournal of Ecology, 1964
- A lens for whole sky photographsQuarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 1924