The Holy Grail of Resource Assessment: Low Cost Ground-Based Measurements with Good Accuracy: Preprint

Using performance data from some of the millions of installed photovoltaic (PV) modules with micro-inverters may afford the opportunity to provide ground-based solar resource data critical for developing PV projects. The method used back-solves for the direct normal irradiance (DNI) and the diffuse horizontal irradiance (DHI) from the micro-inverter ac production data. When the derived values of DNI and DHI were then used to model the performance of other PV systems, the annual mean bias deviations were within plus or minus 4 percent, and only 1 percent greater than when the PV performance was modeled using high quality irradiance measurements. An uncertainty analysis shows the method better suited for modeling PV performance than using satellite-based global horizontal irradiance.