solar power

Cloud Coverage Prediction to Improve Solar Power Management

Cloud movement prediction is a difficult problem that has been studied for many years. As humans, we can easily identify where the clouds are and maybe predict their movement within a couple of minutes; however, we are unable to predict beyond a short period of time as cloud size, altitude, wind velocity, and other weather conditions contribute to it being a very complicated task. But this research is important because cloud prediction gives advance notice to grid managers of coming solar energy shortage or spikes, allowing the system to prepare and buy energy from other sources as needed. In this paper, we continue the work of many researchers over the last decade, finding new ways to process the images and creating new neural networks to handle predictions.

Power Optimization for the 4.5 MW Gold Tree Solar Array

Cal Poly’s Gold Tree Solar Array suffers from interrow shading, an issue that can devastate a solar plant’s power output. The array can control panel tilt angles to avoid such shading, but the current control parameters fail to do so properly, and the problem is made worse by highly skewed topography. Since trial-and-error testing on the site itself is unfeasible, we used site measurements and first principles to construct a functioning model of the array and its power output in MATLAB. This continuing work, upon fulfilling its ultimate objectives, will provide a fast and convenient tool to test tracking parameters for eventual power optimization.

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