Solar power variability and spatial diversication:

implications from an electric grid load balancing

perspective
Brian Tarroja, Fabian Mueller and Scott Samuelsen*
,
Advanced Power and Energy Program (APEP), University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA
SUMMARY
Quantifying the severity of the intermittencies in solar irradiation is important for (i) understanding the potential impacts of
high solar power penetration levels on the electric grid and (ii) evaluating the need for technologies that may be necessary to
complement solar power in order to balance the electric grid. This study uses a spectral method to distinguish between cloud-
induced and diurnal cycle-induced transients and to quantify the severity of intermittencies occurring over a range of
timescales. The method is used to quantify variability between specic sites as well as to evaluate the sensitivity of solar
power variability to spatial diversication of the solar farm portfolio. Results indicate that increasing the spatial diversity
of the solar farm portfolio reduces the magnitude of the uctuations in power output as a fraction of the total system capacity.
This behavior is associated with two forces: (i) a reduction in the inuence of uctuations occurring at an individual site on
the total prole and (ii) should the sites in question be sufciently spaced apart, the uctuations in solar irradiation that each
site exhibits are uncorrelated and do not generally add up in tandem at short timescales. These effects reduce the degree of
uncertainty and variability associated with solar farm output and demonstrate a reduction in the maximum magnitude of
solar power uctuations for a given solar penetration level. The rate of increase of the maximum solar power deviation from
the 1-h average associated with increases in desired solar penetration level decreases in an inverse exponential manner with
the number of sufciently spaced sites composing the solar farm portfolio. These results imply that a lower amount of
regulation or energy storage capacity is needed to regulate solar intermittency if solar installations and the accommodating
transmission infrastructure are designed and operated appropriately. Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
KEY WORDS
solar intermittency; solar dynamics; solar power integration; power spectral density
Correspondence
*Scott Samuelsen, Advanced Power and Energy Program (APEP), Engineering Laboratory Facility, University of California, Irvine,
Irvine, CA 926973550, USA.

Email: gss@apep.uci.edu
Received 16 February 2011; Revised 22 January 2012; Accepted 23 January 2012
1. INTRODUCTION
Because of increasing concerns regarding national security,
climate change, and the environmental impacts of current
state-of-the-art electric power generators, renewable elec-
tric power generation systems are receiving increased
attention in both public and private sectors. Although
solar power only accounts for a small fraction of the total
electric generation at present, it is poised to become a
major contributor to a sustainable electric infrastructure
and is growing at an accelerated pace. The cumulative elec-
tric solar capacity in the USA has grown from about
494 MW in the year 2000 to 2108 MW in 2009 [1] and is
projected to grow as a major asset in meeting state renew-
able portfolio standards as well as other renewable-based
initiatives [2]. Costs associated with solar power have
decreased steadily over time and are projected to continue
declining because of technology and manufacturing
advances [1].
Solar power exhibits a number of favorable characteris-
tics as a renewable energy resource. Of the different resource
types, solar power exhibits the largest exergy inux into the
troposphere: approximately 5000 TW is theoretically avail-
able [3], only a minute fraction of which needs to be utilized
to meet a noticeable portion of the global energy demand.
Although the amount of solar energy received per square
meter of land area varies considerably with location and
geography, many of the worlds nations have access to areas
of high solar irradiation. In the USA, high-resource areas
exist particularly in the southwestern desert region and
western coast areas, and reasonable-resource areas are pres-
ent in many areas of the country [4,5].
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENERGY RESEARCH
Int. J. Energy Res. (2012)
Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/er.2903
Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
As solar power becomes an increasingly large fraction
of the electric power generation portfolio, solar intermit-
tency characteristics will become increasingly signicant.
Similar to wind power, solar power cannot be easily
dispatched, and the power output of a given solar system
can exhibit large, quick changes during the onset of inter-
mittency events such as the passing of a broken cloud
sequence. To maintain electric grid reliability, the variation
in electric loads and solar power generation must be
compensated for by dispatchable energy resources on the
grid. Dispatchable energy resources such as energy stor-
age, gas turbines, or hydropower must balance the differ-
ence between the electric demand and solar generation at
all times. Specically, these intermittencies have implica-
tions for the scheduling of generators on the grid to meet
different operational criteria.
To address the different operational criteria, the following
three categories can be specied to describe power genera-
tion scenarios on the grid:
1. Bulk Capacity. The energy delivered by generators
in this category is scheduled ahead of time to meet
the predicted load prole and energy demand for
the next day and next hour.
2. Regulation. The power capacity of generators in this
category is provided to compensate for variations
and uncertainties in the load demand in real time,
because the load demand cannot be predicted exactly
beforehand.
3. Spinning Reserve. The power capacity of generators
in this category is used to provide a generation
reserve to compensate for contingency conditions
on the grid.
The uctuations in power output exhibited by renewable
energy resources such as wind or solar power can affect the
behavior of generators in all of these categories and can
directly affect the required regulation capacity. Currently,
there is difculty in predicting the occurrence of uctuations
in solar power because of cloud passes that occur on shorter
timescales. Therefore, the introduction of a large amount of
solar power onto the electric grid will increase the amount
of uncertainty and severity of variations that must be
balanced by dispatchable generators. In order to compensate
for this uncertainty, a larger amount of regulation capacity or
ancillary services may be required to ensure that the total
load demand is always exactly matched by the total power
generation in real time. Therefore, characterizing and nding
methods to alter the character and magnitude of these uc-
tuations is important to determining the effects of reaching
high solar penetration levels on electric load balancing.
2. BACKGROUND
Although solar power has a number of favorable character-
istics, effective and economic utilization of solar power
potential is hampered by a range of technical challenges
on both the fundamental and the system levels. One key
challenge is the characterization and development strate-
gies to handle the intermittent nature of solar power.
Historically, the majority of available data for solar
irradiation or power output has consisted of databases with
an hourly temporal resolution, such as the National Solar
Radiation Database [4]. A majority of previous efforts to
characterize solar intermittency has been performed using
hourly resolved solar irradiation data, and these efforts have
generally viewed such intermittencies in terms of incident
energy or availability or the fact that solar power by itself
is not dispatchable. Moharil and Kulkarni [6] used hourly
resolved data to develop a methodology for evaluating the
reliability of solar photovoltaic systems, and Ehnberg and
Bollen [7] utilized data of the same resolution to perform a
reliability analysis of a stand-alone solar and hydropower
energy system. Porter [8] utilized hourly resolved solar
power data as part of an intermittency analysis of renewable
energy, in combination with highly resolved data for
particular episode days at particular sites. Other studies have
relied on hourly resolved solar irradiation or power data or
estimations [9,10] to carry out analyses that characterize
solar intermittency by using distributions or develop practi-
cal methods to handle such intermittency in the energy
system of interest.
From examining the factors that cause nondiurnal
variation in the solar prole, it becomes apparent that
uctuations in solar irradiation and therefore solar power
occur on timescales faster than 1 h. Only recently have stud-
ies that approach the issue of solar intermittency by using
data with a high temporal resolution emerged. In particular,
Tomson [11,12] and Tomson and Tamm [12] examined
solar irradiation intermittencies caused by broken and scat-
tered cloud patterns by using 1-s irradiation measurements.
Days were classied as containing stable or unstable irradi-
ation variations, and the severity of the intermittencies was
quantied in terms of the irradiation ramp rate. The distri-
bution of these increments with respect to magnitude and
duration was examined, and distribution laws were devel-
oped from examination of these distributions. Vijayakumar
et al. [13] examined what types of information are not
captured when using hourly resolved irradiation data as
opposed to more nely resolved data, noting a number of
inaccuracies in the former. Reikard [14] compared different
methods of forecasting solar irradiation at high resolution,
by using timescales as short as 5 min.
Lave and Kleissl [15] performed an analysis of four
sites in the state of Colorado, by utilizing 1- and 5-min
resolution data for the year 2008. The sites were separated
by distances ranging from 19 to 197 km, and the statistics
of ramp rates as well as spectral energy were used as
metrics to quantify solar variability. It was found that a
signicant smoothing effect was observed relative to the
prole of each site when all four sites were aggregated
together. The magnitude of extreme ramp rates and the
probability of such ramp rates occurring decreased signi-
cantly for timescales shorter than 12 h, and it was projected
that such metrics would continue to decrease as more sites
Solar power variability: characterization and implications B. Tarroja, F. Mueller and S. Samuelsen
Int. J. Energy Res. (2012) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/er
are added. A coherence analysis explained the effect by
displaying low coherence between the sites at timescales
shorter than 12 h.
Mills [16] conducted a study that examined the sensitivity
of solar uctuation magnitudes on different timescales to
the number of sites in the aggregate prole and the dis-
tance between sites. An estimation of the costs of required
resources to balance solar proles with different levels
of geographic diversication on the electric grid was also
determined, on the basis of North American Electric
Reliability Corporation standards. With the use of cumula-
tive probability density functions of ramp rates, it was found
that solar irradiation did not follow a normal distribution and
increased levels of geographic diversication decreased
the probability of large changes in power from occurring.
The correlation of solar irradiation at different sites was
found to decrease in a negative exponential manner, as sepa-
ration distance is increased because of decoupling of cloud
phenomena. Higher correlations were present at longer
timescales. In addition, the costs required to manage solar
intermittency on the electric grid was found to decrease
signicantly with geographic diversication, from $39.0/
MWh for dynamics exhibited by a single site to $2.7/MWh
for dynamics exhibited by 25 aggregated sites.
Curtright and Apt [17] utilized a spectral method to
examine the character of power output and effect of
geographic diversication from three solar photovoltaic sites
in the state of Arizona with a maximum separation distance
of 290 km. Data with a 10-min resolution for a period of
2 months were analyzed. The PSD of solar power from all
sites exhibited peaks at timescales of 24, 12, 8, 6, and
4.8 h, after which the magnitude of the PSD decreased
considerably. Solar power variability was measured by the
statistics of the individual and aggregate solar power vectors,
and it was found that variability did not decrease consider-
ably when the solar prole was geographically diversied.
This is in contrast to the results of other ndings and was
explained as a result of a high correlation being present
between the sites stemming from large cloud fronts.
Efforts have also been focused on developing strategies to
mitigate the impact of such intermittencies on the electric
grid. Srensen [18,19] constructed and evaluated an energy
system conguration scenario for Northern Europe in 2060
and addressed the issue of renewable intermittency through
the use of energy storage and strong energy import/export
ows between national grids. Syed et al. [20] conducted
simulations of grid-connected buildings with high wind
and solar penetration levels in Canada and proposed that
the geographic distribution of photovoltaic systems would
lead to harmonic cancelations and decrease the net voltage
degradation on the grid caused by photovoltaic systems.
For the distribution grid, Niemi and Lund [21] analyzed the
effectiveness of voltage control strategies such as cable
improvement, transformer management, demand-side
management, energy storage, and line interconnection to
mitigate the effect of local intermittent generation sources.
This study aims to characterize the implications of short
timescale solar intermittency and its sensitivity to a single
key factorspatial diversicationwithin the context of
its projected impact on the design and operation of load
balancing resources in the electric grid infrastructure. Note
that this study does not intend to serve as a comprehensive
design space analysis for solar power systems. The analysis
will be conducted from the standpoint of solar power
generation and knowledge of balancing resource operation
but does not aim to directly model the electric grid and its
response to the introduction of solar power: that is a topic
for future work.
3. DATA ACQUISITION
The data used for this analysis were obtained from publicly
available databases provided by the Solar Radiation
Monitoring Laboratory at the University of Oregon. This
database contains solar irradiation data for a network of
monitoring stations spread across the states of Oregon,
Washington, Idaho, and Montana, with some selected sites
containing photovoltaic power data if such an array is present
at that particular site. The irradiation data itself contained
separate components (direct and diffuse), as well as the total
effective irradiation incident on the surface of measurement
with resolutions as high as 5 min at selected stations. The
network of monitoring stations containing 5-min data and
the groupings of sites used in this analysis are presented in
Figure 1.
Out of the total network, only 14 stations contained data
at a resolution of 5 min. Of these monitoring stations, only
eight were chosen for use in this analysis. The stations
situated in the state of Oregon were chosen because these
stations have a fairly uniform spatial distribution, which is
advantageous for examining the effect of spatial diversica-
tion. The data sets for the Bend and Cannon Beach sites did
not exhibit sufcient quality for use in this study (i.e., many
data gaps) and were therefore excluded from the site selec-
tion. The total effective irradiation incident on a horizontal
surface (global) was used as the quantity of examination
and comparison.
The remaining sites were used to form groups, which
cumulatively add sites to their portfolio to span a larger
land area. The normalized irradiation prole of each group
as a whole was examined. Specically, the groups consist
of the following sites presented in Table I.
4. QUANTIFYING SOLAR
INTERMITTENCY
4.1. Conventional methods: ramp rates
The most intuitive measure for quantifying the severity of
uctuations in solar irradiation is the ramp rate, dened
as the change in the magnitude of the total irradiation on
a surface over a given time interval:
R
G
t
Solar power variability: characterization and implications B. Tarroja, F. Mueller and S. Samuelsen
Int. J. Energy Res. (2012) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/er
This metric offers a simple, physical means for analyzing
transients. Therefore, many studies have used it to quantify
the severity of changes in photovoltaic power output, or
simply changes in incident irradiation due to clouds. When
applied to analyze intermittencies in solar irradiation,
however, a number of issues must be addressed in order for
this metric to be used and interpreted accurately.
First, when obtaining ramp rates from irradiation data, it
is necessary to differentiate normally occurring ramp rates
from those caused by intermittency events such as cloud
passes. Relatively large ramp rates can occur even during
clear, sunny days, but they do not represent an intermittency
or uctuation. This differentiation can be conducted in
practice with cloud sensors as employed by Tomson [11];
otherwise, it is difcult to do in postprocessing without
weather data in addition to irradiation data.
Second, a timescale must be specied, and the ramp rate
value can only quantify transients that occur on that
timescale. For the highest accuracy, this timescale is often
chosen to be the resolution of the data, although different
timescales may be chosen depending on the focus of the
analysis. Although multiple timescales may be chosen, the
signicance of the ramp rate value on timescales other than
the fastest timescale may be difcult to determine.
4.2. Use of a spectral method
This study utilizes a simple spectral method for quantifying
the severity of uctuations in solar irradiation, calculating
the PSD of the prole. The use of a frequency-spectrum
method allows the quantication and comparison of
transients that occur across a large range of frequencies
(timescales). Because spectral methods are based on the
decomposition of the signal into sine waves, both an increase
and a decrease must occur in order to increase signal power
on a particular frequency, and the uctuations that occur on
different frequencies are isolated from each other. This
allows the differentiation of normally occurring transients
from those caused by intermittency events, because transi-
ents that are due to normal diurnal variations will only
register as an increase in signal power on longer timescales.
Irradiation data for each of the selected sites for the
entire year of 2005 were divided into irradiation vectors
for each day and normalized by the one-sun irradiation
condition. The PSD of the irradiation vectors for each
day was then constructed by taking the magnitude of the
vectors discrete Fourier transform:
P
xx
f
1
2

X
N-1
n0
x n e
j2pfn

1
N
X f k k
2
With the use of Parsevals theorem, the energy of this
spectrum can be determined:
E
X
N-1
n0
x n j j
2

1
N
X
N1
n0
X f j j
2
To be meaningful, the energy value must only consider
only the frequencies of the power spectrum that are charac-
teristic of atypical intermittencies. For solar irradiation, the
diurnal variation is relegated to the lower frequencies.
Because the clear-day solar prole is not an exact sine wave,
however, the frequency at which the spectrum becomes
dominated by typical clear-day variations is not clear. There-
fore, it was necessary to examine the power spectrum of a
clear day and to determine an approximate frequency after
which the power value can be considered negligible. The
prole of a clear day in Ashland along with an inset of its
power spectrum is presented in Figure 2.
Figure 1. Site groupings used in the current analysis.
Table I. Site groupings used in this analysis.
Group number Sites included
1 Ashland
2 Group 1 +Klamath Falls +Silver Lake
3 Group 2 +Burns +Eugene
4 Group 3 +Salem+Portland +Hermiston
Solar power variability: characterization and implications B. Tarroja, F. Mueller and S. Samuelsen
Int. J. Energy Res. (2012) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/er
The value of the power spectrum for this clear day nomi-
nally reaches zero at a frequency of approximately 400 mHz,
corresponding to a timescale of 0.7 h or 42min. At higher
frequencies, the value of the spectrum remains very low
compared with that of the frequency components lower than
this value. Note, however, that the criterion for determining
whether the power value at a given frequency is negligible
is somewhat arbitrary. For this study, the frequency where
the value of the spectrum dropped below 5(10
-8
) times the
maximum value of the clear-day spectrum was determined
to be the dividing frequency. A different ratio can be used
if this method is utilized as long as the calculated energy
value does not include signicant contributions from spec-
trum components that arose because of normal clear-day
variation in solar irradiation while still capturing variations
that occur on the timescale range of interest. Note that,
because the dividing frequency is the lower bound of the
portion of the spectrumused in calculating the signal energy,
only transients that occur on frequencies equal to or higher
than this will be captured. This must also be considered
when determining the appropriate dividing frequency for a
given analysis.
The energy value for the intermittent part of the power
spectrum is determined by integrating the spectrum from
the established lower bound frequency to the highest
frequency allowed by the resolution of the data. For a
clear-day prole as displayed in Figure 2, the corresponding
spectrum has near-zero values over the domain of integration;
therefore, its energy value is very low in this case (0.285 J).
Conversely, for a day that exhibits an irradiation prole with
multiple uctuations of high magnitude on short timescales,
the spectrumwill exhibit very high values over the domain of
integration, and the corresponding energy value will be very
high, as shown for a day in Ashland in Figure 3.
The corresponding spectrum is signicantly different
from that of the clear day, showing a general change in the
location of peaks as well as signicant signal power values
over the domain of integration, yielding a high energy value
of 5112.9J. Even though the portion of the spectrum below
the dividing frequency is changed, it is difcult to determine
whether the contributions in these frequencies are due to
intermittencies or normal clear-day variations; therefore, this
portion is not included in the calculation of the energy value.
The energy value for the appropriate subsection of the
power spectrum is calculated for each day, site, and group-
ing, and the magnitude as well as the yearly distribution of
the energy value is used as the metric for quantifying and
comparing the severity of solar intermittencies. As the irradi-
ation prole of a single day exhibits an increasing amount or
magnitude of uctuations because of factors other than the
typical diurnal variation (such as cloud passes), the energy
value of the spectrum subsection increases. This trend was
discovered to be consistent for all of the days of the year.
Overall, a simple method based on Parsevals theorem
has been developed to quantify solar intermittency across
a range of timescales and allows the separation of normally
Figure 2. Clear-day irradiation prole and corresponding power spectrum.
Solar power variability: characterization and implications B. Tarroja, F. Mueller and S. Samuelsen
Int. J. Energy Res. (2012) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/er
occurring changes in irradiation from changes caused by
undesirable intermittency events such as cloud passes.
Note that the accuracy of this method is highly dependent
on the resolution of the data set in question, as using data
with a low temporal resolution can mask the presence of
fast transients. This work will base its results on a 5-min
resolution, which is the highest resolution available from
the source data, although it is important to note that it
may be possible for solar irradiation dynamics to occur
on shorter timescales.
5. SPATIAL DIVERSIFICATION OF
SOLAR FARMS AND EFFECTS ON
INTERMITTENCY
5.1. Effect of regional solar farm portfolio
diversication on solar prole
This section examines the effect of the spatial diversica-
tion of the deployment of solar farms on the severity of
the irradiation (and therefore power output) uctuations
exhibited by the aggregated solar prole. This concept
can apply to either the distribution of a given solar power
capacity or the successive addition of solar farms at a
diverse array of sites that serves a larger area of the elec-
tric grid. The sites are aggregated together in groups as
displayed in Figure 1.
The irradiation proles used for comparison are normal-
ized by one-sun conditions and by the number of sites
included. For example, the irradiation prole for one site
(Group 1) is created by normalizing the irradiation vector
by 1000 W/m
2
multiplied by the number of sites. The
irradiation prole for a group of three sites, such as Group
2, is created by summing the irradiation vectors for each site
at every time step and by normalizing the resulting vector
by three times the one-sun condition, or 3 (1000 W/m
2
).
In general, for each time step,
G
n

X
Ns
i1
G
i

=Ns
where G
n
is the normalized irradiation, G
i
is the raw irradi-
ation value of site i, and Ns is the number of sites included.
This normalization is carried out in order to render the
proles comparable and operates under the assumption that
a group of solar farms that cover larger land areas will serve
a larger, appropriately scaled portion of the load on the
electric grid. The object of examination is the magnitude
of power uctuations that a solar farm or group of solar
farms will impart onto the electric grid as a fraction of
total system size, even though for higher solar capacities,
the absolute magnitude of the uctuations (MW) may be
increased. Finally, all of the sites are assigned an equal
weighting: each site contributes equally to the aggregate
prole. The normalized solar proles of the different
Figure 3. Irradiation prole of a highly transient day and corresponding power spectrum.
Solar power variability: characterization and implications B. Tarroja, F. Mueller and S. Samuelsen
Int. J. Energy Res. (2012) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/er
groups for the most transient day of Group 1 are presented
in Figure 4.
As more sites are added to the total prole, the aggregate
normalized prole becomes smoother in comparison with
the one-site case. Dispersing the farms of the aggregate
prole across large distances appears to decrease the magni-
tude of the uctuations in the normalized prole, as well as
slightly altering the shape. The energy values corresponding
to each of the proles are also displayed and are shown to
drop considerably as more sites are added to the solar farm
portfolio, decreasing by more than an order of magnitude
in the transition from Group 1 (5119.2 J) to Group 4
(372.4J). This effect appears to be due to two main
driving forces.
First, because all of the groups with the exception of the
rst are composed of an aggregation of sites, the inuence
of the uctuations occurring at a single site on the aggre-
gate prole is reduced as more sites are added. For the case
of Figure 4, the Ashland site experienced severe transients
in incident irradiation, whereas other sites in the state did
not. Therefore, when aggregated with the other sites, the
effect of the Ashland uctuations was reduced by a factor
of 3, 5, and 8 for Groups 2, 3, and 4, respectively. Second,
it was found that the uctuations at different sites did not
tend to occur in tandem. When one site experienced a
severe positive ramp rate, another site included within the
same group experienced either a very low ramp rate or a
negative ramp rate that counterbalanced the behavior of
the transient site.
Overall, these effects only amount to reducing the
magnitude of the uctuations that appear in the normalized
prole. These effects do not remove the occurrence of
these uctuations, except in the rare cases where exact
counterbalancing occurs. Additionally, these effects are
made possible because the uctuations that occur at sites
that are spaced a sufcient distance apart are decoupled.
This will be further discussed in a later section.
The behavior exhibited by the most transient day (Day
156) was found to be consistent with all other days of the
year. The distribution of the daily energy values for differ-
ent individual sites is presented in Figure 5, and that for the
successive groupings is presented in Figure 6:
The energy value distributions are presented by way of
a modied histogram. Each gure plots the number of days
(horizontal axis) that the energy value is equal to or above
a certain value (vertical axis). For example, the Hermiston
site exhibits approximately 100 days out of the year where
the energy value is equal to or greater than approximately
260 J, as indicated by the red dot and dashed lines in
Figure 5(b). The point where the curve reaches the vertical
axis is representative of the energy level of that site or
groups highest energy level day. Of the four sites
displayed in Figure 5, the Hermiston site, followed by the
Ashland site, exhibits the lowest energy levels overall.
The energy levels drop signicantly as more sites are
added to the farm portfolio. The largest decrease occurs in
the transition from a single site (Group 1) to three sites
(Group 2), with slightly diminishing decreases as more sites
Figure 4. Normalized solar proles for Day 156 of (a) Group 1, (b) Group 2, (c) Group 3, and (d) Group 4.
Solar power variability: characterization and implications B. Tarroja, F. Mueller and S. Samuelsen
Int. J. Energy Res. (2012) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/er
are added thereafter. The energy level of the worst day drops
from 5119.2 to 372.9 J in the transition from Group 1 to
Group 4, and in this particular case, the day with the highest
energy value remains Day 156. All of the multisite groups
exhibit energy levels that are lower than any of the individual
sites alone. In general, the number of days that exhibits
higher energy levels decreases as more sites are added, indi-
cating that the severity of the uctuations in the normalized
irradiation prole of each group is reduced.
5.2. Solar irradiation dynamics and
implications for load balancing uncertainty
5.2.1. Uncertainty band and installed regulation
capacity
The short timescale uctuations exhibited by intermittent
renewable energy sources such as wind or solar have impli-
cations for how supporting generators on the grid such as
gas turbines must operate to ensure that the load is balanced
at all times. The inability to predict solar irradiation at shorter
timescales with the accuracy needed for exact load balancing
implies that an increase in the required capacity on the regu-
lation market will be necessary to handle the increased
uncertainty in the balance power that will arise with
increased solar penetration. Therefore, it is of interest to
examine the uncertainty associated with these uctuations
and their sensitivity to effects such as spatial diversication.
The normalized solar proles of each of the different
groupings are presentedinFigure 7, overlaidwith 1-h averaged
data and maximum uncertainty bounds.
For this case, the degree of uncertainty will be explained
in terms of a set of parameters for ease of interpretation. The
quantity l is dened as the magnitude of the deviation in
solar irradiation from the 1-h average. This quantity was
chosen because it is expected that the solar irradiation on a
1-h timescale can be predicted with reasonable accuracy
ahead of time; therefore, the uctuations from this average
will determine the prole that must be directly met by regu-
lation power. The lower bound of the uncertainty band is
determined by subtracting the magnitude of the largest
negative l value from the 1-h average, whereas the upper
bound is determined by adding the magnitude of the largest
positive l value to the 1-h average. The width of the uncer-
tainty band () is dened as the width of the band formed by
the upper and lower bounds for each day. This metric is
nominally representative of the regulation capacity required
to ensure that the total load demand is always balanced by
total generation, because there must be enough regulation
or ramping capacity scheduled ahead of time to mitigate
the largest uctuations that may occur during a given day.
The maximum positive uctuation from the 1-h average is
the amount that variable generators on the grid must be able
to turn down in power for that day. The maximum negative
uctuation from the 1-h average is the amount of power that
variable generators must be able to increase to for that given
day. The range spanned by the two indicates the total operat-
ing range of the variable generators, that is, the required
regulation capacity for that day. Day 156 is used as the prime
example because it exhibits the most severe transients. The
discussion is given in terms of power rather than irradiation,
Figure 5. Daily energy value distributions for different individual sites: (a) total and (b) inset.
Figure 6. Daily energy value distributions for site groupings: (a) total and (b) inset.
Solar power variability: characterization and implications B. Tarroja, F. Mueller and S. Samuelsen
Int. J. Energy Res. (2012) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/er
because solar power is directly proportional to incident solar
irradiation.
With only a single site, the amount of uncertainty in total
power generation can be very large. In this particular case,
the width of the uncertainty band of the normalized solar
prole exceeds a value of 1, indicating that the regulation
capacity that exceeds the rated capacity of the solar system
must be scheduled to guarantee that loads will be met. There-
fore, the installation of solar power in this case does not
offset any amount of required balance generation capacity.
As more sites are added to the portfolio, however, the
width of the uncertainty band decreases. In transitioning
from a single site (Group 1) to eight geographically spaced
apart sites (Group 4), the width of the uncertainty band
decreases from 104% to 40% of the systems rated capacity.
This transition also shows the largest decrease, consistent
with trends displayed prior, indicating that the regulation
capacity required to compensate for power uctuations as a
fraction of total system capacity is reduced. This is due to
the same reasons previously discussed: decreasing the
inuence of uctuations that occur at individual sites and
the tendency of uctuations exhibited by individual sites
do not occur in tandem. This indicates that a main benet
of utilizing a spatially diverse solar farm portfolio is to
buffer the total effect of cloud-induced intermittencies on
the electric grid. Practically, this indicates that very large
amounts of energy storage may not be necessary to buffer
cloud intermittency if solar farms are spatially diversied.
Spatial diversication can allow an initial reduction in the
required capacity or capabilities of auxiliary systems such
as energy storage as a fraction of the total generation capacity
or total load demand.
The width of the uncertainty band () was calculated
for each day of the year for each of the proles and is
presented by a modied histogram in Figure 8.
The distribution is presented in a manner similar to
Figure 5 and plots the total number of days that the
maximum daily of the normalized solar prole is equal
to or above a certain value. As more sites are added, the
number of days exhibiting higher maximum daily is
decreased, showing that the decrease in the width of the
uncertainty band that occurs with spatial aggregation tends
to occur as a whole and not only on select days. The largest
Figure 7. Solar proles of different spatial aggregations with maximum uncertainty bands for Day 156.
Figure 8. Distribution of daily for different spatial aggregations.
Solar power variability: characterization and implications B. Tarroja, F. Mueller and S. Samuelsen
Int. J. Energy Res. (2012) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/er
decrease in the number of days with a wide uncertainty band
overall also occurs during the rst transition from Group 1 to
Group 2, consistent with the trends presented prior.
From a grid design standpoint, the maximum yearly
exhibited throughout the year is tied to the amount of
regulation capacity that must be installed on the grid (as a
fraction of nameplate solar capacity), such that all uctua-
tions in the remaining load demand prole after intermittent
power generation prole has been subtracted can be met.
Therefore, in this study, the maximum yearly is referred
to as the maximum solar power uctuation (P
sf,max
). This
metric helps quantify the highest amount of variability due
to solar power that the electric grid infrastructure will have
to be capable of accommodating. The behavior of this
quantity with solar penetration level can provide some
insights into the scalability of solar power in terms of integra-
tion onto the electric grid and is presented for the case of
solar penetration in Oregon for solar proles of different
spatial diversity levels in Figure 9. Therefore, if the solar
capacity required to reach a given level of solar penetration
is installed, the requirements to manage the uctuations from
that capacity of solar power from a diverse portfolio of sites
as opposed to installing the entire capacity at a single site can
be evaluated.
As the desired solar penetration level increases, P
sf,max
increases in a linear fashion. This linear trend is only
applicable, assuming that no curtailment of solar power
occurs. Because peak solar power tends to occur in close
temporal proximity to the times of high load demand,
however, curtailment will not be an issue at low solar pene-
tration levels. Determining the appropriate penetration level
range with different grid resource mixes is the subject of
future work.
This implies that for a given desired solar penetration
level, the amount of regulation capacity that the electric
grid must devote to managing all of the solar irradiation
transients for the year can be decreased if the solar portfo-
lio is composed of a larger amount of solar sites. For
example, suppose that the electric grid system for a given
balancing region (in this case, the state of Oregon) is able
to accommodate only 4000 MW of regulation capacity
for managing solar power transients. This capacity would
be sufcient to balance the intermittencies of a solar capac-
ity equivalent to a 12% solar penetration level if all of the
solar power was produced from one site, whereas a solar
penetration level of 31% can be balanced if eight sites were
used. This is the direct implication of the decreased vari-
ability (as a fraction of total system capacity) that comes
with the increased spatial diversication of solar power
installations. Spatial diversication of solar power installa-
tions allows a larger capacity of solar power to be ac-
commodated on the electric grid for a given amount of
dedicated regulation capacity for managing renewable in-
termittency. This indicates that spatial diversication can
partially mitigate an obstacle that has hindered the scaling
up of the solar power capacity on the grid.
Because P
sf,max
behaves linearly with desired solar
penetration level in the absence of power curtailment, the
effect of spatial diversity can be examined by calculating
the slope of the curves presented in Figure 9 as a function
of the number of sites composing the solar prole, as
presented in Figure 10.
As implied by the previous results, the rate of increase of
P
sf,max
per percent solar penetration decreases as the solar
farm portfolio is composed of a larger amount of sites (i.e.,
greater diversity). The largest decrease occurs when transi-
tioning from one site to two sites (65 MW/%), and smaller
decreases are garnered thereafter. As the number of sites is
increased, the slope of P
sf,max
with solar penetration
level appears to follow a decreasing exponential trend.
This behavior makes sense because as single sites are
incrementally added to the solar farm portfolio, the recently
added site has a smaller effect on the aggregate power signal
for solar farm portfolios that are already spatially diverse
because its contribution is a smaller fraction of the total
power. This trend assumes that the nameplate power capacity
of each of the different sites is equal and may become
different should the weighting of solar power capacity
change between the sites.
Figure 9. Maximum solar power uctuation versus solar
penetration level for Oregon using solar proles of different
spatial diversity levels.
Figure 10. Slope of maximum solar power uctuationsolar
penetration curves versus number of sites.
Solar power variability: characterization and implications B. Tarroja, F. Mueller and S. Samuelsen
Int. J. Energy Res. (2012) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/er
Overall, the spatial diversication of a solar farm port-
folio reduces the magnitude of the uctuations in solar
power as a fraction of the total rated capacity. The energy
levels of the short timescale uctuations in irradiation are
reduced as more sites are added, indicating a reduction in
the overall magnitude and amount of occurrences of these
uctuations. The amount of uncertainty in solar power
generation that must be prepared for in order to ensure
exact load balancing is reduced signicantly, implying a
decrease in the required regulation capacity in comparison
with a single-site case. As more sites are added to the solar
farm portfolio, the magnitude of the maximum solar power
uctuation per percentage increase in solar penetration
level decreases, following an inverse exponential trend
with the number of sites composing the solar portfolio.
This implies a decrease in the installed regulation capacity
needed to balance solar power uctuations. This effect
allows higher solar penetration levels to be reached for a
given amount of installed regulation capacity or a reduc-
tion in the required capabilities of other auxiliary systems
such as energy storage on the electric grid.
These effects arose because of two principal driving
forces: (i) the reduction in the inuence of uctuations at
an individual site from affecting the aggregate and (ii)
cloud-induced uctuations of sufciently spaced sites are
not simultaneous. This second driving force is examined
in detail herein by the use of the coherence function.
5.2.2. Coherence analysis
The coherence function for two signals x and y is
dened as a ratio of PSDs:
g
xy

G
xy
f

2
G
xx
f G
yy
f
where G
xy
is the cross spectral density as a function of
frequency of the two signals and G
xx
and G
yy
are the PSDs
as a function of frequency of the individual signals. The
coherence function is a real-valued function that gives an
indication of how correlated two signals are as a function
of frequency, bounded between 0 and 1, with a value of
1 indicating that two signals vary perfectly in tandem on
that particular frequency. This is a useful measure for de-
termining whether the variations in irradiation that occur
at different sites tend to happen in tandem at a given
frequency.
The coherence spectrum of one solar site pair, the
Ashland and Hermiston sites, is displayed in Figure 11.
Although only the coherence spectrum of the Ashland
Hermiston site pair is displayed, this plot is representative
of the coherence spectra of all of the site pairs. The coherence
spectrum was calculated using pairs including the Ashland
site in combination with each of the other sites considered.
The irradiation proles tend to be correlated to a reason-
able degree only on the lower frequencies (longer time-
scales). The frequency that exhibits the highest coherence
value (~0.99+) for the site pairs considered is approximately
11.40mHz, which corresponds to about a 24-h timescale.
This makes sense because variations on this timescale are
governed by the diurnal variation of the suns position in
the sky relative to the site in question, which affects all of
the sites simultaneously. Above a certain frequency, how-
ever, the coherence value for the different site pairs drops
signicantly (to less than 0.2). Distinct peaks in coherence
occur at frequencies of 11.40 mHz (1 day), 22.81 mHz
(12h), 34.21 mHz (8h), 45.62 mHz (6h), and 58.65 mHz
(4.8 h) for all site pairs, although the peaks that occur at the
latter frequency tend to exhibit low coherence values: about
0.4 for the nearest site to Ashland (Klamath Falls) to 0.18
for the farthest site from Ashland (Hermiston). These
peaks occur because the longer timescale variations are due
to diurnal effects or storm events that can affect sites
simultaneously.
At frequencies higher than 58.65 mHz, the coherence
spectra of the different site pairs exhibit no particular
pattern in terms of distinct peaks occurring at particular
frequencies or high coherence values. The value of the
coherence function at these faster frequencies tends to
remain at a very low value, generally never rising above
0.1 and strictly never rising above 0.2. This indicates that
the short timescale uctuations in irradiation that a given
site exhibits are not coupled with the similar events occur-
ring at a different site.
This result is only reasonable given that the sites in
question are spaced a sufcient distance apart. The short
timescale variations are generally caused by the passing of
broken or scattered cloud patterns over a site. The timescale
of an individual uctuation in irradiation depends on the
amount of time that a particular cloud is covering the site
and is dependent on the size and velocity of the cloud passing
over the site or panel array. If the cloud in question moves
very slowly or is very large, the timescale of the uctuation
will be long and vice versa. The magnitude of an individual
uctuation depends on the size of the cloud relative to the
land area covered by the array at any given time. If the cloud
in question covers a larger fraction of the array area, the
associated drop in power output will be larger. For the
Figure 11. Coherence spectrum of the AshlandHermiston
site pair.
Solar power variability: characterization and implications B. Tarroja, F. Mueller and S. Samuelsen
Int. J. Energy Res. (2012) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/er
uctuations at two different sites to systematically occur in
tandem, the magnitude and timescale of these uctuations
must be caused by the same cloud or cloud sequence. If
two sites are sufciently spaced apart, a broken cloud
sequence that impacts one site may not simultaneously
impact another site for a variety of reasons: either that the
size of the cloud sequence is too small to cover both sites
simultaneously or if the cloud sequence is moving, it may
break up and not persist long enough to reach the other site.
Over the large distances considered between sites in this
study, the only cloud patterns that tend to simultaneously
affect multiple sites tend to be large storm fronts, which
can be thought of as very large-sized cloud sequences.
This result provides insight as to why a reduction in the
magnitude of power uctuations can occur when a solar
farm portfolio is composed of a diverse array of sites.
Because the short timescale uctuations are decoupled,
these variations do not, on average, add up in tandem for
a given time step. Theoretically, if the variations in the
irradiation proles at each site were perfectly correlated,
the effect of reducing the signicance of the individual
sites among the aggregate would be exactly canceled out,
and the normalized prole of the aggregate would show
no change. These results show that this is not the case.
This result has another implication for the modeling of
solar power on large-scale systems such as the transmission
grid. As more sufciently spaced sites are added to the solar
farm portfolio, the magnitude of the power uctuations from
the 1-h average as a fraction of the total system capacity
tends to decrease because of the effects described prior.
Therefore, as the number of sufciently spaced sites
approaches a very large number, the high-resolution solar
power prole will begin to converge on the shape of the
low-resolution, 1-h average prole. The amount of sites that
can be added to the prole to induce this effect is limited,
however, because these sites must be sufciently spaced
apart. Very large-scale systems such as the transmission grid
receive power input from thousands of generators of differ-
ent types, fossil fuel-red or renewable, and the deployment
of solar power on this scale is likely to include a large
amount of sites, especially if the penetration of photovoltaics
and distributed generation becomes signicant. Therefore,
on systems of this scale, it can be somewhat reasonable to
utilize 1-h resolution data to model the solar power input to
the system, given that the solar farm portfolio is composed
of a large number of sites. Determination of an exact amount
of sites and what distance range determines whether such a
site meets the sufciently spaced apart criterion is beyond
the scope of this study and is a subject for future work.
As particular sites are spaced farther apart, the probability
that those sites exhibit coherent variations in irradiation is
expected to decrease, because the number of cloud patterns
of sufcient size to affect both sites simultaneously will
decrease. To examine this, a parallel operation to Parsevals
theoremis carried out on the coherence spectrum. In order to
quantify the degree of coherence between two sites over a
frequency range, the integral of the coherence spectrum
within certain bounds is utilized. This quantity loosely
represents the degree to which the irradiation proles from
two sites are coherent across a particular frequency range.
For this study, the domain of the integral spans from 46 to
1667 mHz. Note that because the integrand is not the PSD
and is dimensionless, the integral quantity is not energy
in the same sense as signal energy and is referred to as the
energy of coherence. The distribution of the energy of
coherence for different site pairs is presented as a modied
histogram in Figure 12.
In order of increasing distance from the Ashland site,
the sites are arranged accordingly:
1. Silver Lake (nearest)
2. Burns
3. Portland
4. Hermiston (farthest)
The higher energy of coherence values do not change
signicantly, because these values are due to clear-day
solar irradiation proles. On clear days, the irradiation
proles of all of the sites will be highly coherent with each
other because little to no uctuations occur and the proles
are governed by the same phenomena. The amount of days
that the energy of coherence is equal to or greater than a
given value decreases as the second site used in the pair
becomes farther away from the Ashland site, with the
Silver Lake site exhibiting the highest amount of coherent
days and the Hermiston site exhibiting the lowest. This
trend implies that the irradiation proles of two sites that
are farther apart will be less coherent at the higher
frequencies (shorter timescales) when compared with that
of two sites that are relatively near to each other, supporting
the hypothesis proposed prior.
Note that the data set used in this study does not have
sufcient spatial resolution to make a denitive, accurate
description about the correlation of solar irradiation uc-
tuations at different sites as a function of distance. This
result only indicates that sites that are separated by larger
distances along the direction of cloud travel tend to be
less coupled. For this data set, the site that is in the
Figure 12. Distribution of the energy of coherence for different
site pairs.
Solar power variability: characterization and implications B. Tarroja, F. Mueller and S. Samuelsen
Int. J. Energy Res. (2012) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/er
closest proximity to the Ashland reference site is Klamath
Falls, which is still approximately 70 miles away. The
coherence spectrum of the AshlandKlamath Falls pair
tends to show slightly higher coherence values than sites
that are further away at the distinct frequencies mentioned
prior, but that is not enough to create an expression that
models the degree of coherence as a function of distance
and direction. Such an expression will require an under-
standing of regional weather patterns and a higher spatial
resolution and is a topic for future work.
5.2.3. Discussion: solar variability and the
transmission system
The short timescale uctuations of solar power have the
potential to affect not only the balancing of the bulk load
demand but also the management of power ow within a
balancing area and between different balancing areas
(power imports and exports). This section discusses the
implications of solar power variability for electric grid
operations that occur within and between balancing areas.
In order for the full smoothing effect of the spatial
diversication of solar farms to be realized by other
generators on the grid, the power ow from the individual
farms are combined with each other before being transmit-
ted to serve a load center. With this arrangement, the short
timescale uctuations in solar power output will be
reduced before being imposed on a load center or balanc-
ing generator. A schematic of this arrangement is shown
in Figure 13.
The interconnection of solar farms in the manner shown
in Figure 13 is not always feasible, however. Because the
solar farm portfolio will be spatially diverse, the solar
farms will most likely be located far away from each other,
and power ow from each farm may not be able to
combine with each other to create a smooth power signal.
For example, power ow from a single solar farm may
be directed toward serving a load center that is located in
close proximity without having directly combined with
power ows from other solar farms. In this case, the
substation and local balancing generators will locally
observe the full magnitude of power output variation from
a single solar farm, even though many solar farms are
installed throughout the entire balancing area. A schematic
of this arrangement, which more closely represents a solar
interconnection scenario, is presented in Figure 14.
Therefore, it is of key importance that not only the
load balancing aspect of accommodating large amounts Figure 13. Combination of power ow from three solar farms.
Figure 14. Interconnection of three solar farms with loads within a balancing area.
Solar power variability: characterization and implications B. Tarroja, F. Mueller and S. Samuelsen
Int. J. Energy Res. (2012) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/er
of solar power on the electric grid but also the design
and operation of the transmission system be addressed
such that benets garnered by acts such as spatial diver-
sication of solar farms can be realized. This is a subject
for future work.
6. CONCLUSIONS
A method to quantify the severity of uctuations in solar
irradiation and power output exhibited by a given
geographic site accounting for the different timescales of
uctuation has been utilized. The effect of utilizing
solar farm portfolios with increasing levels of spatial
diversication on the magnitude of irradiation or power
uctuations as a fraction of the total system capacity has
been examined and compared with a single-site case as a
reference. The implications of the effect for balance
generation have been discussed.
The key conclusions of this study are as follows:
1. The spatial diversication of the solar farm site portfo-
lio allows for a reduction in the magnitude of normal-
ized irradiation (and therefore power) uctuations as a
fraction of the total system capacity installed on the
electric grid. This is due to two effects: (i) the reduc-
tion in the inuence of uctuations at one site on the
aggregate prole and (ii) the irradiation proles
between two sites that are sufciently spaced apart so
as to not be correlated.
2. The degree of variation associated with solar power
output as measured by the size of the uncertainty
band is decreased as more sufciently spaced sites
are added to the total prole.
3. The maximumsolar power uctuation, which is tied to
the amount of regulation capacity that must be
installed on the electric grid to balance all of the solar
power uctuations for a given year, is decreased as
the solar farm portfolio becomes increasingly diverse.
This indicates that higher solar penetration levels are to
be reached for a given amount of installed regulation
capacity or lower required increases in installed regu-
lation capacity per unit increase in solar penetration
level. The rate of increase in required regulation capac-
ity with increases in desired solar penetration level
decreases in an exponentially decaying manner with
the number of sites composing the solar farmportfolio.
4. The uctuations in solar irradiation that occur on
timescales faster than 6 h are uncorrelated between
sites that are sufciently spaced apart. Therefore,
the faster uctuations that occur at each site did not
occur simultaneously and sometimes even counter-
balanced each other.
5. Because of the low coherence between sufciently
spaced apart sites at shorter timescales, it may be
reasonable to utilize hourly resolved data to model
solar power transients on very large-scale systems
such as the transmission grid, under the condition
that the solar farm portfolio consists of a large
amount of sufciently spaced apart sites.
Overall, utilizing a spatially diverse solar farm portfolio
appears to offer a means of partially mitigating some of
the disadvantages and concerns with the increased penetra-
tion of solar power into the electric generation portfolio of
the grid: namely issues concerned with the severe unpredict-
ability of solar irradiation and associated dynamics. The
implementation of spatial diversication renders these
concerns to be more manageable than originally perceived
and has the potential to reduce the required capabilities of
auxiliary systems, which must manage the effect of these
issues such as balance generators or energy storage systems.
On the larger scale, however, novel energy management
strategies will need to be developed to effectively and
robustly utilize solar power along with a diverse portfolio
of other renewable energy sources and conventional
sources in order to retain the stability of the electric grid
with increased renewables. In order to develop these strate-
gies, it is important to understand what can be done at each
level in the electricity generation chain (generation, trans-
mission, delivery, and use) to accommodate the behavior
of renewable energy resources. The benets and decien-
cies of other renewable resources and the analysis of holis-
tic approaches to attaining high levels of overall renewable
penetration into the electric grid and to identifying the types
of complexities required to manage renewable power
resources on the grid are the focuses for future work.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This document was prepared in part as a result of work
sponsored by the California Energy Commission under
Contract No. PIR-08-033. It does not necessarily represent
the views of the Energy Commission, its employees, or the
State of California. The Energy Commission, the State of
California, its employees, contractors, and subcontractors
make no warranty, express or implied, and assume no legal
liability for the information in this document; nor does any
party represent that the use of this information will not
infringe upon privately owned rights. This report has not
been approved or disapproved by the Energy Commission
nor has the Energy Commission passed upon the accuracy
of the information in this report. The authors would also
like to express their appreciation to the University of
Oregon for making irradiation data available in the public
domain and to the National Science Foundation for
supporting the graduate studies of the lead author through
the Graduate Research Fellowship Program.
REFERENCES
1. Sherwood L. 2009 Solar Industry Year in Review.
Solar Energy Industries Association: Washington DC,
2009; 112
2. CPUC. California Solar Initiative Program Hand-
book. 2010.
Solar power variability: characterization and implications B. Tarroja, F. Mueller and S. Samuelsen
Int. J. Energy Res. (2012) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/er
3. Hermann WA. Quantifying global exergy resources.
Energy 2006; 31(12):16851702.
4. NREL. National Solar Radiation Database. Department
of Energy: U.S., 19912005
5. NREL. Concentrating Solar Resource of the United
States. DOE: U.S., 2009.
6. Moharil RM, Kulkarni PS. Reliability analysis of solar
photovoltaic system using hourly mean solar radiation
data. Solar Energy 2008; 84(4):691702.
7. Ehnberg SGJ, Bollen MHJ. Reliability of a small
power system using solar power and hydro. Electric
Power Systems Research 2005; 74(1):119127.
8. Porter K. Intermittency analysis project: nal report.
California Energy Commission, Public Interest Energy
Research Program, 2007.
9. Vick B, Clark R, Mehos M. Improved electrical load
match in California by combining solar thermal power
plants with wind farms. In 37th ASES Annual Conference.
San Diego, CA, 2008.
10. Larran T, Escobar R, Vergara J. Performance model
to assist solar thermal power plant siting in northern
Chile based on backup fuel consumption. Renewable
Energy 2009; 35(8):16321643.
11. Tomson T. Fast dynamic processes of solar radiation.
Solar Energy 2009; 84(2):318323.
12. Tomson T, Tamm G. Short-term variability of solar
radiation. Solar Energy 2006; 80(5):600606.
13. Vijayakumar G, Kummert M, Klein SA, Beckman
WA. Analysis of short-term solar radiation data. Solar
Energy 2005; 79(5):495504.
14. Reikard G. Predicting solar radiation at high resolutions:
a comparison of time series forecasts. Solar Energy
2009; 83(3):342349.
15. Lave M, Kleissl J. Solar variability of four sites across
the state of Colorado. Renewable Energy 2010;
35:28672873.
16. Mills A. Implications of Wide-Area Geographic
Diversity for Short-Term Variability of Solar Power.
DOE: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, U.S.,
2010.
17. Curtright A, Apt J. The character of power output
from utility-scale photovoltaic systems. Progress in
Photovoltaics: Research and Applications 2008;
16:241247.
18. Srensen B. A sustainable energy future: construction
of demand and renewable energy supply scenarios.
International Journal of Energy Research 2008; 32(5):
436470.
19. Srensen B. A renewable energy and hydrogen
scenario for northern Europe. International Journal
of Energy Research 2008; 32(5):471500.
20. Syed AM, Fung AS, Ugursal VI, Taherian H. Analysis
of PV/wind potential in the Canadian residential sector
through high-resolution building energy simulation.
International Journal of Energy Research 2009; 33
(4):342357.
21. Niemi R, Lund PD. Alternative ways for voltage
control in smart grids with distributed electricity
generation. International Journal of Energy Research
2011. DOI: 10.1002/er.1865
Solar power variability: characterization and implications B. Tarroja, F. Mueller and S. Samuelsen
Int. J. Energy Res. (2012) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/er