Comparison of Ground-based and Satellite-based Irradiance Data for Photovoltaic Yield Estimation

High accuracy of yield prediction is of utmost importance for commercial scale photovoltaic systems. One key parameter crucial to the prediction accuracy is the choice and availability of reliable solar radiation data. In this work we investigate the impact of two fundamentally different irradiance data sources on the calculation of the yearly yield and performance ratio for five locations in different climatic regions of Australia. We find an overestimation of the yield calculation of up to 9.3% for satellite-based climate irradiance data compared against one-minute ground-based irradiance data. The yield overestimation shows a general correlation with the number of cloudy days. We propose a linear correction of the yield calculation which allows to improve the prediction accuracy based on more broadly available satellite-based irradiance data.