TY - JOUR
T1 - Impacts of solar intermittency on future photovoltaic reliability
AU - Yin, Jun
AU - Molini, Annalisa
AU - Porporato, Amilcare
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank Professors Robert Socolow and Tiejian Li for their constructive comments on this work. J.Y. acknowledges support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41877158, 51739009), NUIST startup funding (1441052001003), Jiangsu distinguished faculty program, and NUIST’s supercomputing center. A.P. acknowledges support from the USDA Agricultural Research Service cooperative agreement 58-6408-3-027; and National Science Foundation (NSF) grants EAR-1331846, EAR-1316258, FESD EAR-1338694, and the Carbon Mitigation Initiative at Princeton University. A.M. acknowledges support from the Khalifa University Competitive Internal Research Award, CIRA-2018-102.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).
PY - 2020/12/1
Y1 - 2020/12/1
N2 - As photovoltaic power is expanding rapidly worldwide, it is imperative to assess its promise under future climate scenarios. While a great deal of research has been devoted to trends in mean solar radiation, less attention has been paid to its intermittent character, a key challenge when compounded with uncertainties related to climate variability. Using both satellite data and climate model outputs, we characterize solar radiation intermittency to assess future photovoltaic reliability. We find that the relation between the future power supply and long-term mean solar radiation trends is spatially heterogeneous, showing power reliability is more sensitive to the fluctuations of mean solar radiation in hot arid regions. Our results highlight how reliability analysis must account simultaneously for the mean and intermittency of solar inputs when assessing the impacts of climate change on photovoltaics.
AB - As photovoltaic power is expanding rapidly worldwide, it is imperative to assess its promise under future climate scenarios. While a great deal of research has been devoted to trends in mean solar radiation, less attention has been paid to its intermittent character, a key challenge when compounded with uncertainties related to climate variability. Using both satellite data and climate model outputs, we characterize solar radiation intermittency to assess future photovoltaic reliability. We find that the relation between the future power supply and long-term mean solar radiation trends is spatially heterogeneous, showing power reliability is more sensitive to the fluctuations of mean solar radiation in hot arid regions. Our results highlight how reliability analysis must account simultaneously for the mean and intermittency of solar inputs when assessing the impacts of climate change on photovoltaics.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-020-18602-6
DO - 10.1038/s41467-020-18602-6
M3 - Article
C2 - 32963258
AN - SCOPUS:85091291816
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 11
JO - Nature communications
JF - Nature communications
IS - 1
M1 - 4781
ER -