Solar Energy Forecasting in Cloudy Locales

Through an effort to better predict the solar energy conversion of PV cells in regions of occasional cloudiness the subject software was developed to process optically captured whole-sky images differentiate clouds from clear sky and correlate said cloud coverage with the productivity of nearby PV installations. Mapping the frequency and density of local cloud coverage can have valuable implications in planning a new solar collection installation and/or for load balancing with other sources of power when the system identifies an impending reduction in solar efficiency due to passing clouds.

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