PV Measures Up for Fleet Duty

Data from a Tennessee Plant Are Used to Illustrate Metrics That Characterize Plant Performance

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2012.2234405 Date of publication: 20 February 2013

CONVENTIONAL POWER PLANT PERFORMANcE metrics are designed for dispatchable generation. These can be difficult to apply to variable generators such as wind and solar power. This article describes additional metrics that can be applied to photovoltaic (PV) power plants and illustrates these metrics using measured data collected from a 1-MW PV plant in Tennessee over a one-year period. The article persuades that new metrics will be needed to measure and effectively employ PV for duty in a traditional generation fleet. Over the last ten years, much attention has been given to operating the grid with large-scale wind resources. Learning from the wind experience has helped to acquaint grid operators with variable generation, and the North America Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) has now initiated several efforts to address operating and balancing the grid with variable resources. Solar is included, but differences in wind and solar plant performances need to be considered.

By Chris Trueblood, Steven Coley, Tom Key, Lindsey Rogers, Abraham Ellis, Cliff Hansen, and Elizabeth Philpot

iSTOCKPHOTO.COM/IAKI ANTOANA PLAZA

march/april 2013

1540-7977/13/$31.002013IEEE

IEEE power & energy magazine 33

table 1. Tennessee plant specifications. AC rating DC rating Inverters Modules Mount Commission date
1

Sample PV Plant Site

PV plant metrics presented in this article are demonstrated by measured data from a 1-MW plant located in Tennessee. Table 1 lists the plant specifics. This plant was selected because good-quality 1-s resolution data were available over a one-year period. It needs to be noted that plant performance is always site specific, and results should not be generalized for other plant locations, fleets of plants, or plants with different design and size. Figure 1 shows a front view of the PV plant, and Figure 2 shows the four 260-kW inverters and the distribution pole point-of-common-coupling with the utility for grid connection. Data collected from this site include ac power, energy, voltage, temperature, and irradiance measurements. The sites irradiance instrumentation includes eight pyranometers located on the plane of array (POA), which is a fixed 25 tilt due south. Note that for this plant, the array dc and the inverter ac output powers are rated at approximately the same level (1.04 MW ac versus 1.03 MW dc). Plant ac output is limited to rated value. However, the dc rating refers to dc output at specific conditions and does not mean that dc output is limited to the rated value. For example, during low temperatures, with optimal sunlight incidence angles, and solar irradiance enhanced by cloud reflections, the array dc power significantly exceeds the dc rating. The relative sizes of these ratings affect plant performance metrics such as capacity factor, discussed later.

1.04 MW 1.03 MW 4 # 260 kW 4,608 polycrystalline silicon modules rated 224 W dc at STC1 Ground mounted, fixed 25 tilt, oriented due south 2010

STC stands for standard test conditions (1,000 W/m2 irradiance and 25 C module temperature) at which the performance of the module is measured and reported.

Solar PVs are much more distributed than wind, individual PV plants ramp more quickly, and has a different proximity and timing relative to end-use demand. Solar typically has a higher capacity value than wind, but defining the differences in a standard way is a work in progress. Currently IEEE 762-2006 is the standard for reporting individual power plant performance. It defines reliability, availability, and productivity indexes to report traditional, dispatchable power plant performance. The standard assumes fuel is available and indicates to what extent the rest of the plant performs relative to its rating and availability. In contrast, performance metrics used for PV plants must take into account the fact that fuel is variable and is the main determining factor of plant availability. This contrast, between traditional controllable generation and emerging variable generation, has led to some confusion and hesitation to incorporate solar plants into a conventional generation fleet. In the future, metrics will be needed that are compatible with the traditional generation and that also allow easy comparison between new generation options. Once metrics are defined, they need to be accepted by stakeholders and adopted into standards such as IEEE and NERC. When both the PV industry and the utility industry speak the same language, assessments for bringing solar PV into a traditional generation fleet can be more consistent.

Measuring Solar Resource

The solar resource at a given location is dependent on weather and time period examined. Irradiance and insolation are two common, and well-defined, measures of solar resource. Irradiance is a measure of solar power on a given plane, e.g., a horizontal plane or POA, and is usually expressed in W/m2. The power output from a PV plant is generally proportional to the POA irradiance across the PV plants footprint. Because plant output is generally proportional to irradiance, variability in irradiance is informative about the variability in plant output power. For the results reported in this article, site

figure 1. A 1-MW PV array at the plant in Tennessee, view looking northeast.

34
IEEE power & energy magazine

figure 2. Inverters and utility service from local distribution.

march/april 2013

irradiance was measured using typical pyranometers having an aper7 ture of roughly 1 cm2. The number 6 of irradiance sensors required to accurately estimate irradiance over 5 a plant footprint is the subject of active research. 4 Insolation is defined as solar 3 energy received over time, i.e., the integration of irradiance. Typi2 cal daily values range from 2 to PVWatts Simulated Output 2 1 MW Plant in TN Measured (Monthly) 7 kWh/m depending on loca1 1 MW Plant in TN Measured (Average) tion, array tilt, time of year, and 0 weather. Figure 3 shows the measured monthly POA insolation at the site (vertical bars) compared to calculated values (background). Calculated values are monthly Month in 2012 and come from NRELs PVWatts. figure 3. Monthly solar insolation is computed from measured irradiance using They are based on site design a POA pyranometer. The background shading is a monthly forecast for insolation details entered into the online at this site from NRELs PVWatts calculator and the horizontal line is the measured calculator and a solar predicannual average. tion for the site based on hourly weather history data in a typical meteorological year (TMY) from the National Solar Radiation Database. Because insolation The calculated clear sky solar insolation can be calculated quantifies solar energy over a period of time, it is roughly from a number of clear sky models. Typical values for the proportional to the expected plant electrical energy output daily clearness index range from 0.0 to 1.1. Values greater for the same period of time. than 1.0 are obtained in practice because clear-sky models Figure 4 shows a different view of the site irradiance, may not be exact for every hour at any given location. a solar power calendar based on POA irradiance averaged The daily variability index is the variability in measured for each minute throughout the month of August 2012. As irradiance, relative to the variability of the calculated clear expected, the resource generally rises as the sun rises and sky irradiance, with each quantified by the length of the irrafalls as it sets. Perhaps not as expected, the resource can be diance versus time plot for the day, where the curve length highly variable within time frames of seconds to minutes, between two measurements is determined using a line segchanging quickly with passing clouds. No two days are the ment. Typical values for daily variability index range from 1 same. Some days are clear (e.g., 23 August), others are partly to 30 and are determined using the equation cloudy (e.g., 15 August), and others are overcast (e.g., 6 and 10 August). Daily Variability Index Looking day to day gives a perspective on the variation Length of measured irradiance plot = . Length of clear sky irradiance plot for a particular location and the time period. A method for classifying days as more or less variable is proposed. This method uses a combination of the classical daily clear- Using combinations of the daily clearness index and the ness index and a new daily variability index, defined by variability index, variability in irradiance can be qualiSandia National Laboratories. Research is being conducted tatively categorized, as shown in Figure 5, using five to determine if distinguishing variability in this manner can categories of variability conditions: high variability, modbe used by utility generation planners and grid operators in erate variability, mild variability, clear, and overcast days. making decisions. Examples of each type of day are shown with a correThe daily clearness index is the ratio of solar energy mea- sponding value for variability index and clearness index. sured on a given surface to the theoretical maximum energy Quantifying variability of a single PV plant or fleet of PV on that same surface during a clear sky day: plants over a given area may aid in power system operations decisions, such as how to set the level of regulating reserves. Classifying days as having a specific variabilDaily Clearness Index ity allows a power system operator to determine the freMeasured Solar Insolation = . Calculated Clear Sky Solar Insolation quency at which each type of variable day occurs, which
Insolation (kWh/m2 per day) May February September October January August March June July November march/april 2013
IEEE power & energy magazine 35

December

April

August 2012 Sunday Monday Tuesday 1 Wednesday 2 Thursday 3 Friday 4 Saturday

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

figure 4. Measured solar irradiance profiles (blue areas) for each day in August 2012. One-min average data are shown from a POA pyranometer located at the Tennessee plant. The reference curve (thin orange line) is calculated from the Ineichen clear-sky model using Sandia National Laboratorys PV Performance Modeling Toolbox for MATLAB (http:// pvpmc.org/pv-lib/).

VI 2 10

Clear Sky POA Irradiance Measured POA Irradiance

High VI 1 2 CI $ 0.5 Clear Moderate 5 # VI 1 10

VI 1 2 CI # 0.5

Overcast

Mild

2 # VI 1 5

figure 5. Categories for daily variability conditions are based on the clearness index (CI) and the variability index (VI).
36
IEEE power & energy magazine

march/april 2013

may aid in determining the likelihood that the power system experiences challenging conditions from variable generation sources. Use of a common set of variability metrics allows comparison of the relative frequency power output changes between different plant sizes and weather regions. Using the U.S. irradiance map, shown in Figure 6, the variable conditions of the Tennessee plant are compared to a plant in Arizona. The daily variability index is used to classify type and number of days each season of the year.

unit and plant performance indexes. In recent years, with a high growth in wind power, NERC has given special attention to issues of variable generation resources. However, so far, IEEE has not defined indexes for variable generation. Between the two efforts there remains some ambiguity on specific performance measures for variable and nondispatchable generation.

IEEE Generator Performance Standards

Since 1980, IEEE Standard 762 has provided standard definitions for use in reporting generating unit performance. It defines performance factors for reliability, availability, and productivity. The standard provides 15 energy and capacity terms, 21 time designations and dates, 25 performance indexes for individual generating units, including availability, capacity, and outage factors. Plant outages (forced or planned) determine unavailability. In the 2006 update, new indexes were added to pool groups of plants, including timebased and capacity-weighted indexes.

Power Plant and Fleet Standards

In North America, IEEE and NERC are the two main sources for accepted practices to measure and report plant and fleet performance. Standard definitions for performance of generating units are provided by IEEE while NERC covers the reliability of overall fleet operations, resource adequacy, and coordination between balancing authorities. NERC standards have relied on IEEE to define individual

Variability Conditions: Tennessee Site Percentage of Days (%) 100 80 60 40 20 0 January March April July October June September December Season in 2012 High Moderate Mild Clear Overcast

Variability Conditions: Arizona Site

Percentage of Days (%)

100 80 60 40 20 0 January April July October March June September December Season in 2012

Annual Isolation Latitude Tilt kWh/m2 per Day > 6.5 6.06.5 5.56.0 5.05.5 4.54.0 4.04.5 3.54.0 3.03.5 < 3.0

figure 6. Daily variability conditions for specific sites in Arizona and Tennessee. The background U.S. map shows average annual solar resource modeled by NREL (http://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar.html). (Used with permission from NREL.)
march/april 2013
IEEE power & energy magazine 37

The IEEE standard is used for traditional (dispatchable) generation that has a well-defined and consistent fuel source. Controllability, although not explicitly defined, is assumed to be an option in the plants operation. The power output of these traditional power plants can therefore be planned, controlled, and dispatched to meet expected daily load variations and to balance or regulate energy delivered to transmission and distribution grids. So far, IEEE 762-2006 has not been used to characterize variable generation such as wind and solar power. These generation resources depend heavily on the weather where sunlight and wind are, in effect, a variable fuel source. In the current IEEE standard, the effects of weather are considered as a less-critical performance factor, for example, affecting the summer and the winter ratings of traditional thermal plants. Adding more weather-related performance factors and related indexes to cover variable generation is expected to be a priority in the next revision of this IEEE standard.

NERC Fleet Control Standards

In 2007, NERC created the Integration of Variable Generation Task Force (IVGTF) to address issues related to variable generation from a fleet operation and flexibility perspective. One issue, output controllability, is a significant differentiator for variable power plants. The typical parameters that define controllability are start-up time, cycling range, rates, and minimums, as well as consideration for any expected and uncontrolled output variability. Table 2 compares different types of dispatchable and nondispatchable generation related to controllability. Previously, IEEE 858-1993 (now withdrawn) defined terminology covering generator control parameters used in power operations. Now, in IEEE 762-2006, some level of plant controllability is assumed, but specific measures are

not defined. Since deregulation, NERC has taken on the responsibility to consider fleet controllability. Independent system operators and utilities have set fleet operating practices at the electricity balancing area level. Tariffs define ancillary services such as regulation and ramping, and electricity markets determine the value. Everyday operators have to schedule in controllable power plants and to consider the overall flexibility of the fleet. NERC has defined specific control performance standards that apply between defined balancing areas. For example, measuring the fleets ability to support system frequency (CPS1) and to maintain planned energy exchanges (CPS2). The main objective is system reliability, flexibility, and resource adequacy. An individual solar or wind plant is usually not considered controllable or dispatchable by operators. Instead, these plants are assumed to operate at full power output and treated as must take energy producers. There is active discussion on the extent to which a fleet of PV plants, with diversity of location and solar resource, can provide dependable capacity. For such variable generation, NERC has recommended two dependability metrics, effective load carrying capacity (ELCC) and loss of load expectation (LOLE). In the NERC metrics, credit for capacity depends on the coincidence of the delivery profile relative to both high risk and peak demand periods. Some periods can be at high risk without necessarily being a peak demand period. ELCC measures an individual generators contribution to the next increment of demand that a power system can reliably support. Related, LOLE is a fleet-level resource adequacy metric. LOLE analysis, usually over a one-year period, forms the basis of calculating how much a particular generator, or group of generators, contribute to planning reserves and reserve margins, given a reliability target. For example, the traditional planning target for LOLE

table 2. Comparison of various generation technologies with respect to output controllability (Key, EPRI). Generation Source Nuclear Coal Natural gas CT Natural gas CC Hydro power* Wind* Solar PV* Minimum Cycling Time On/Off Days Once/day More than twice/day Twice/day Minutes Minutes* Minutes* Controlled Ramp Rate (Up or Down) 0.22%/min 0.22%/min 35%/min 23%/min 100% in 30 s to 2 min Seconds* Seconds* Uncontrolled Variability Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely Seasonal 10%/min 10%/s Minimum Output % of Rated** 90100 4050 5565 4555 10 25 25 Typical Unit Size (MW) 7501,500 10750 20250 40400 1250 0.015 <0.11.5

Startup Time Hoursdays Hoursdays Minutes Hours Minutes Minutes* Seconds*

*Controlled output changes depend on available resource (water, wind, sun) and uncontrolled output variabilities (such as ramping) depend on generation source, specific technology, and weather. **Minimum output is dictated by economics and technical limits, and market incentives could lower minimum outputs.

38

IEEE power & energy magazine

march/april 2013

is .1 days/year, or maintaining generation adequacy 99.97% of the time. 25 0.25 Capacity Factor Average Daytime Hours Less formally, PV is given more Average Capacity Factor credit than wind because of daytime 20 0.20 and summer peaking even though demand typically peaks later in the 15 0.15 day than solar noon. Individual PV plants can be quite variable because of 10 0.10 cloud movements. For example, when a cloud moves over a single PV plant, 5 0.05 the amount of energy from that plant is reduced, perhaps significantly. How0 0 ever, this variability can be reduced in very large plants or widely distributed plants across the utility grid. PV mounting structures that track east to west are able to extract more Month in 2012 energy later in the day and, therefore, may provide a better match of solar figure 7. Capacity factor shown by month (vertical bars), including average oneoutput to peak load times (typically year capacity factor (horizontal line) and average daytime hours shown in the 47 p.m.). Additionally, variability is background (gray area). normally reduced when considering the net outputs of both wind and solar PV together. output over time. Some of the factors currently defined in IEEE It is clear that solar plants deserve some credit for daytime 762 (conventional reporting factors) are planned and unplanned capacity and for contribution to resource adequacy. There is outages, availability, seasonal deratings, service, and capacity growing interest among utilities to find a standard way for factors. The industry is proposing the measurement of the folassessing solar capacity credit. However, there remains both lowing PV plant variables: energy production and solar resource ambiguity and complexity in estimating this credit. Not well factors (over a specified time period of interest), and solar plant defined are how to address multiple weather years, other plant energy performance, based on either inverter (ac) or array (dc) components contributions to unreliability (such as inverter ratings. But first, we provide some discussion about the ambiguor tracker downtime), and statistical methods to account for ity surrounding solar power and capacity factor. overall uncertainty. Better calculation and reporting methods should be a goal of future standards development. Conventional Capacity Factor Capacity factor is normally defined as the ratio of actual output of a plant over a period of time relative to the rated outMeasuring PV Plant Performance Data from the 1-MW plant in Tennessee, monitored for put, if operating at nameplate capacity over the same period. 12 months, are used to illustrate the metrics needed to char- For example, coal and combined-cycle natural gas plants acterize PV power and energy performance. Some metrics operate at about 7080%, nuclear at about 90%, gas turbines are traditional; others are new and are introduced in this at less than 5%, and on-shore wind at about 2535%. Hydro article to address the challenge of measuring variable gen- in the United States (excluding pumped storage) operates at eration. These metrics include plant capacity factor, normal- about 50% capacity factor. ized power and energy, and weather related variability. Not covered are plant economics, operating reliability, output Capacity Factor (CF) Total Energy Produced (kWh) uncertainty, and resources forecasting. Sample performance = . System Rating (kW) # Time Interval (hours) results are specific to the one plant that was monitored, and general conclusions about other PV plants should not be drawn from these results. For the purpose of this article, The annual capacity factor for solar ranges from about only a single year of data is considered. 12 to 24%. Figure 7 shows the monthly capacity factor for the 1-MW PV plant, based on inverter (ac) power rating. The average daytime hours for each month are included in the PV-Delivered Energy Energy, or power output over a time period, is the primary mea- background to show the capacity factor relative to daytime sure of plant productivity. For PV plants, the solar resource, hours (sunrise to sunset at a given geographical location). or insolation, needs to be considered during the time period As can be seen, the capacity factor is highest in the spring of interest. If carefully done, insolation can also provide a ref- months and ranges from 0.080.21 over this particular year. erence point to help in determining the degradation of plant The one-year average capacity factor is 0.16 (noted by the
May February September October April January August March June July November march/april 2013
IEEE power & energy magazine 39

December

Average Daytime Hours

Capacity Factor

conditions (insolation). The idea of normalizing performance by solar 1.1 60 Performance Weighted Average Module insolation is not new. For example, Factor Temperature (cC) 50 PV production and solar reference 1.0 ratios, identified as yields, were 40 used to define plant performance in 0.9 the 2005 conference paper (NREL/ 30 CP-520-37358, 2005). Evolving from 0.8 this concept, a PV plant daytime 20 plant energy performance factor is 0.7 defined. This factor is dimensionless 10 and can be used to compare performance with other plants. 0.6 0 Energy performance factor is defined as a ratio of a daytime production factor and a sun factor. Daytime production factor is total Month in 2012 daytime energy produced divided by the plant rated capacity times dayfigure 8. Daytime array energy performance factor (vertical bars) and weighted time hours. The plant rated capacity average module temperature (red line) by month. can be in terms of the inverter (ac rating) or the array (dc rating). Sun factor is daytime insolation normalized for to a value reprehorizontal red line). The annual capacity factor for other solar plants depends on many elements, including location, senting clear sky irradiance (1,000 W/m2) times the daytime weather, array tracking, balance of plant efficiencies, and hours. Energy performance factor is defined: inverter sizing. There are a few issues for using capacity factor with PV Energy Performance Factor = Production Factor . Sun Factor plants. The first issue is the choice of system rating. The utility industry uses the generator (inverter) ac rating when The factor is dimensionless, and typical values may range calculating capacity factor, while the PV industry has tra- from 0.6 to 1.0. They can be computed over any time period, ditionally used the collector (array) dc rating. As more PVs usually over month, quarter, or annual periods. Lower values enter the fleet, the trend is to use ac rating as the system rat- indicate lower performing systems. Note that using daytime ing. A second issue is, depending on the system, a potential hours doesnt account for plant energy losses at night. economic advantage in over- or undersizing the inverter ratA monthly array (dc) energy performance factor and ing (i.e., designing the dc array size relative to the ac inverter array temperature measured at the Tennessee plant are size). This design would affect the capacity factor, often sig- shown in Figure 8. As temperature increases the perfornificantly. New standards may help with these issues. mance of the array generally decreases, due in large part The time period considered for the capacity factor is also to the less-efficient performance of modules operating in important. Output from a PV plant follows the diurnal cycle higher temperatures. of the sun, only producing during daytime hours (roughly 4,400 h per year), whereas conventional plants are available PV Output Power around the clock (less various downtimes). For conventional The plant output power is normalized to show relative output plants, the capacity factor can be a good indicator of how during a given time period, such as 15-min, hourly, daily, frequently a plant is economically dispatched and how often or monthly intervals. Depending on the application, output it is held in reserve. However, for nondispatchable solar power can be computed using the raw data (e.g., 1-s meaplants, the capacity factor is most directly related to the solar surements) or averaged data. An example is peak generation, resources, with the efficiency of the plant playing a second- based either on the 15-min or 1-h averages of the raw data. ary role. Metrics computed from power output are useful to characOther normalized energy performance factors are pro- terize plant impacts on the electric system. One traditional posed for PV plants. These should be considered in future method used to characterize demand or generation is the revisions to IEEE-762. annual duration curve.
Performance Factor May February September October April January August March June July November

PV Energy Performance
A different way to look at energy performance specific to PV plants is to normalize performance based on local sunlight
40
IEEE power & energy magazine

Normalized Power
Figure 9 shows the annual power output duration measured at the Tennessee plant. Power output is based on 15-min
march/april 2013

December

Temperature (cC)

interval averages during daytime only 120 (4,454 total daytime hours). The irraPOA Irradiance diance duration represents the availAC Output Power 100 able solar resource at this site, and the power duration indicates corresponding 80 ac plant output that exceeds a certain level for the specified duration. 60 Irradiance is measured in the POA and 2 is normalized to one sun (1,000 W/m ). 40 Plant output is normalized to the plants ac rating (1.04 MW ac). Duration (hours) 20 of the power and irradiance are strongly correlated throughout the year. The PV 0 0 100 20 40 60 80 plant does not reach full rated ac output Percentage of 4,454 Daytime Hours in 2012 (%) (100%) because in this case, the ac capacity (1.04 MW ac) of the inverter is about figure 9. This duration curve shows the cumulative time that a measurement the same as the dc capacity (1.03 MW dc) (ac power or POA irradiance) exceeds a certain level. For example, for 20% of of the array. The temperature and the bal- the daytime hours the plants ac output exceeded 61% of its rating while the ance of system losses prevent the plant arrays irradiance input exceeded 73% of its rating. from routinely exceeding its rating. Figure 10 shows the peak power output for each month. Each bar represents the normalized have more hours of daylight. During clear days in the spring, peak power for 15-min (pink bar) and 1-h (blue bar) time the power output is higher than during clear days in the sumintervals. In this particular example the highest peaks occur mer, partially because PV panels are more efficient at lower in late winter and spring, while the lowest peaks occur in temperatures. The median day shows that power output from summer and late fall. Seemingly counterintuitive, the graph PVs can be variable throughout the day, mostly due to cloud illustrates that PV modules perform best when temperatures movement overhead. Also of interest may be the plant output distributed are lower and irradiance incident angles are more optimal for this array. All peaks occur near solar noon, typically statistically by time of day. Figure 12 shows a plot by season between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. local time. The highest one- for each hour of the day. The maximum and minimum valyear peak occurred in April: 88% for both 15-min and 1-h ues for all seasons generally correspond to the clear sky and overcast conditions, respectively. For the Tennessee plant, intervals. Another way to view PV output is to consider daily power the inner quartile range is higher and also smaller in the output profiles by season. The daily power output profile for spring and summer months compared to the winter and fall a given location is heavily dependent on the suns path across the sky and local cloud cover. Figure 11 shows selected 110 15 min daytime power profiles in 15-min inter1h vals for three days each season: a clear 100 day, an overcast day, and a median day. Each day is classified based on the 90 amount of solar insolation. The clearest day is the day within 80 the season with the highest amount of insolation; the most overcast day is the 70 day with the least amount of insolation; and a median day is the day that has the 60 median amount of insolation. This view is useful to characterize the range of power output profiles observed by season. In general, the fall and winter daily profiles are more elongated with higher Month in 2012 power generation at midday, but those profiles have fewer total hours compared figure 10. Peak powers per month (up to 99.7 percentile) are shown for to the summer and spring profiles that 15-min and 1-h time intervals (another year would likely show differently).
Power (% of System Rating) Measured Value (% of Rating) August May June July September October November march/april 2013
IEEE power & energy magazine 41

December

January

February

March

April

100

Winter JanuaryMarch 80 2012 60 40

Spring AprilJune 2012 Clear Day Overcast Day Median Day

Power (% of Rating)

20 0 (a) 100 Summer JulySeptember 80 2012 60 40 20 0 5 10 15 Hour of Day (Local Time) (c) 20 5 10 15 Hour of Day (Local Time) (d) 20 Fall OctoberDecember 2012 (b)

figure 11. Power-output profiles of selected days for each season: the clearest day (tall green bars), the most overcast day (short red bars), and the median energy day (yellow line), based on solar insolation. Note that array tilt, shade, terrain, Daylight Saving Time, and time of year, all affect the system start and stop time. (a) Winter (JanuaryMarch) 2012. (b) Spring (AprilJune) 2012. (c) Summer (JulySeptember) 2012. (d) Fall (OctoberDecember) 2012.
100 Winter JanuaryMarch 2012 80 60 40 Power (% of Rating) 20 0 (a) 100 Summer JulySeptember 2012 80 60 40 20 0 10 15 Hour of Day (Local Time) (c) 20 10 15 Hour of Day (Local Time) (d) 20 Fall OctoberDecember 2012 (b) Spring AprilJune 2012 Max and Min Median Inner Quartile

figure 12. Statistical distribution of a power output by hour of day for each season. Maximum and minimum values are black lines, the inner quartile range is a blue box, and the median value is a red line. (a) Winter (JanuaryMarch) 2012. (b) Spring (AprilJune) 2012. (c) Summer (JulySeptember) 2012. (d) Fall (OctoberDecember) 2012.
42
IEEE power & energy magazine

march/april 2013

Relative Frequency (%)

months. This difference indicates that spring and summer seasons experienced a greater number of hours with higher power generation and that power may be somewhat less variable in the spring and summer than in the fall or winter at 1-h time intervals.

5 4 3 2 1 -100 -50 0 50

1h 10 min 1 min 10 s

PV Output Variability
A method for quantifying PV plant output variability is not well defined. Here PV output variability is quantified by computing sequential changes in measured ac power output, either instantaneous or averaged, over multiple time intervals. These time-based changes form a ramp-rate data set that can be used to statistically characterize how often and to what extent output ramping occurs during daytime hours. Changes in power and rates of change in this data set can be closely related to the solar resource variability index presented earlier. The data are presented in three ways, as the number of change in power (DP) observations, as the percentile of extreme changes in power, and as the hours of DP that exceed a value. For each presentation of data, four ramp rate intervals are included: 10 s, 1 min, 10 min, and 1 h. Ramp rates are computed for each interval using an averaging method, which produces changes from differences between consecutive block averages (not a sliding scale). During daytime hours, the PV plant is assumed to be operating when its ac power output exceeds 0.2% of the systems rating. Distributions of changes, the number of P observations, are plotted as a histogram to illustrate how often changes of different magnitudes were observed. For example, Figure 13 shows distributions of change at the plant during the third quarter of 2012 (the summer season). Of the four ramp rate intervals shown, higher-magnitude changes occur more often for 1-h intervals. This is because ramps at longer intervals are primarily caused by the suns rising or setting. Also note that the directions of changes are separated to illustrate similarities between ramp-up and ramp-down observations. The relative frequency, which is the count of ramps at a certain magnitude divided by the total number of ramps, is scaled quite low, cropped to 5%, to emphasize that the most significant changes occur infrequently. Of primary interest to the utility industry are ramping events having extreme changes, even if they rarely occur. Looking at the upper percentiles for both ramp-up and ramp-down magnitudes offers insight into the extreme cases. To illustrate the occurrence of extreme changes in summer 2012 data, Figure 14 shows the DP for upper percentiles (rare events) and for four time intervals. For example, the 99th percentile of the set of 10-min up-ramps is a change in output equal to 36% of the plants rating, indicating that a change in plant output of this magnitude or greater would be expected to occur approximately 74 times during the roughly 7,400 10-min intervals spanning the daytime hours, July through September.
march/april 2013

100

Change in Power (% of System Rating)

figure 13. Number of P observations relative frequency of changes in averaged power for four ramp rate intervals: 10 s, 1, 10 min, and 1 h. The period shown is summer 2012.

Change in Power (% of Rating)

100 50 0 -50 -100

99.99th 99.9th 99th 95th 90th

10 s

1 min

10 min

1h

Ramp Rate Interval

figure 14. Selected percentiles illustrate how increasing the ramp rate interval of interest affects ramp-up and ramp-down magnitude of change during third quarter 2012 (summer season). Percentiles are distinguished between up ($ 0) and down (#0) ramp events. For example, the top of the yellow box indicates the 90th percentile of ramp-up events, while the bottom of the yellow box indicates the 90th percentile of ramp-down events.

Another way to look at how frequently PV output ramps occur is illustrated in Figure 15. Here the amount of movement, and the amount of time that PV is on the move, is plotted. The graph displays the percent of cumulative daytime hours during summer 2012 where DP exceeds a specific value. For example, 10-min ramps of 36% rated output, or more, occur approximately 1% of the time (12 h during the season). In other words, the 1-MW plants output was 36 kW or more per minute interval. A logarithmic axis is used to better see the larger changes in output that dont occur very often. Currently, about 80% of PVs is connected to the distribution grid. Variability in distributed PVs, and the feeder hosting capacity, have been a main focus of recent research. For example, EPRI has involved utilities, led by Southern Company Services, to install more than 200 collection points of 1-s PV output data around the United States. Sandia
IEEE power & energy magazine 43

100 Change in Power (% of Rating) 10 s 80 60 40 1 min 10 min 1h

metrics and calculation methods will be useful for plant owners, distribution planners, and grid operators to better utilize variable PV plants in a traditional generation fleet.

For Further Reading

IEEE Standard Definitions for Use in Reporting Electric Generating Unit Reliability, Availability and Productivity, 20 IEEE Standard 762-2006, Mar. 2007. NERC, Methods to model and cal0 culate capacity contributions of vari0.01 0.1 1.0 10 100 able generation for resource adequacy Percentage of Daytime (1,236 h) planning, NERC Task Force Report IVGTF1-2, Mar. 2011. figure 15. Total time of occurrence for changes in power at selected ramp G. Curley, Power plant performance rate intervals: 10 s, 1 min, 10 min, and 1 h during third quarter 2012 (summer indices in new market environment: season). Daytime for this quarter totals 1,236 h. IEEE Std 762 working group activities developed the solar resource variability index described here and GADS database, presented at IEEE Power Engineering and has looked at output variability for a dispersed fleet of Society General Meeting, Feb. 2006, Paper 1-4244-0493. EPRI, Photovoltaic plant output and cloud-induced variPV plants. EPRI, NREL and Sandia are currently investigating methods to determine feeder hosting capacity with ability: Issues and opportunities for enhancing plant producCalifornia utilities. With higher penetration solar variability tivity and grid integration. EPRI, Palo Alto, CA, Tech. Rep. is at the distribution level, PV may affect voltage quality and 1023090, 2011. T. Key, Finding a bright spot, IEEE Power Energy Mag., power delivery to other utility customers. At the bulk level, the NERC IVGTF is leading efforts to characterize variable vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 3444, May/June 2009. NREL, Performance parameters for grid-connected PV generation more from the system operators perspective. Results from all these efforts have contributed to defining systems, NREL, Golden, CO, Rep. NREL/CP-520-37358, PV plant performance in this article and will be shared with 2005. NREL, Procedure for measuring and reporting the perstandards development organizations in the future. formance of photovoltaic systems in buildings, NREL, Golden, CO, Rep. NREL/TP-550-38603, Oct. 2005. Conclusions T. Hoff and R. Perez, Modeling PV fleet output variabilNonconventional performance measures will be required to determine a PV plants fitness for fleet duty. Using high- ity, Solar Energy, vol. 86, no. 8, pp. 21772189, Aug. 2012. M. Reno, C. Hansen, and J. Stein, Global horizontal resolution data collected from an operating PV system, the authors characterize plant performance and define metrics irradiance clear sky models: Implementation and analyfor power, energy, and variability. Such metrics are not yet sis, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, Rep. incorporated into standards for reporting the unit perfor- SAND20122389, 2012. J. Stein, C. Hanson, and M. Reno, The variability index: mance of electric power plants and should be considered in the next revision of IEEE STD 762. Related, at the fleet A new and novel metric for quantifying irradiance and PV level, grid operators will need better methods to determine output variability, presented at ASES Annual Conference, the contribution of variable generation to resource ade- May 2012, Rep. SAND2012-208. quacy. Fortunately the NERC IVGTF has recently recommended methods to model and calculate capacity credit for Biographies variable generation. Chris Trueblood is with the Electric Power Research InstiTogether these metrics and methods can be used to deter- tute (EPRI), Knoxville, Tennessee. mine a PV plants performance relative to conventional Steven Coley is with EPRI, Knoxville, Tennessee. generators. Additionally, in the future simplified methods Tom Key is with the EPRI, Knoxville, Tennessee. will be needed to estimate the uncertainty in PV plant outLindsey Rogers is with EPRI, Knoxville, Tennessee. put. Also needed are methods for analyzing relationships Abraham Ellis is with Sandia National Laboratories. between PV plant size, distance between plants, and power Cliff Hansen is with Sandia National Laboratories. density to better understand the behavior of distributed Elizabeth Philpot is with Alabama Power Company, p&e PVs. As more solar generation deploys these performance Birmingham.

44

IEEE power & energy magazine

march/april 2013