TMY data and diffuse irradiance models

This tutorial explores using TMY data as inputs to different plane of array diffuse irradiance models.

This tutorial requires pvlib > 0.6.0.

Authors:

  • Rob Andrews (@Calama-Consulting), Heliolytics, June 2014
  • Will Holmgren (@wholmgren), University of Arizona, July 2015, March 2016, August 2018

Setup

See the tmy_to_power tutorial for more detailed explanations for the initial setup


In [1]:
# built-in python modules
import os
import inspect

# scientific python add-ons
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd

# plotting stuff
# first line makes the plots appear in the notebook
%matplotlib inline 
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

# finally, we import the pvlib library
import pvlib

In [2]:
# Find the absolute file path to your pvlib installation
pvlib_abspath = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(inspect.getfile(pvlib)))

# absolute path to a data file
datapath = os.path.join(pvlib_abspath, 'data', '703165TY.csv')

# read tmy data with year values coerced to a single year
tmy_data, meta = pvlib.iotools.read_tmy3(datapath, coerce_year=2015)
tmy_data.index.name = 'Time'

# TMY data seems to be given as hourly data with time stamp at the end
# shift the index 30 Minutes back for calculation of sun positions
tmy_data = tmy_data.shift(freq='-30Min')['2015']

In [3]:
tmy_data.GHI.plot()
plt.ylabel('Irradiance (W/m**2)');



In [4]:
tmy_data.DHI.plot()
plt.ylabel('Irradiance (W/m**2)');



In [5]:
surface_tilt = 30
surface_azimuth = 180 # pvlib uses 0=North, 90=East, 180=South, 270=West convention
albedo = 0.2

# create pvlib Location object based on meta data
sand_point = pvlib.location.Location(meta['latitude'], meta['longitude'], tz='US/Alaska', 
                                     altitude=meta['altitude'], name=meta['Name'].replace('"',''))
print(sand_point)


Location: 
  name: SAND POINT
  latitude: 55.317
  longitude: -160.517
  altitude: 7.0
  tz: US/Alaska

In [6]:
solpos = pvlib.solarposition.get_solarposition(tmy_data.index, sand_point.latitude, sand_point.longitude)

solpos.plot();



In [7]:
# the extraradiation function returns a simple numpy array
# instead of a nice pandas series. We will change this
# in a future version
dni_extra = pvlib.irradiance.get_extra_radiation(tmy_data.index)
dni_extra = pd.Series(dni_extra, index=tmy_data.index)

dni_extra.plot()
plt.ylabel('Extra terrestrial radiation (W/m**2)');



In [8]:
airmass = pvlib.atmosphere.get_relative_airmass(solpos['apparent_zenith'])

airmass.plot()
plt.ylabel('Airmass');


Diffuse irradiance models

Make an empty pandas DataFrame for the results.


In [9]:
diffuse_irrad = pd.DataFrame(index=tmy_data.index)

In [10]:
models = ['Perez', 'Hay-Davies', 'Isotropic', 'King', 'Klucher', 'Reindl']

Perez


In [11]:
diffuse_irrad['Perez'] = pvlib.irradiance.perez(surface_tilt,
                               surface_azimuth,
                               dhi=tmy_data.DHI,
                               dni=tmy_data.DNI,
                               dni_extra=dni_extra,
                               solar_zenith=solpos.apparent_zenith,
                               solar_azimuth=solpos.azimuth,
                               airmass=airmass)

HayDavies


In [12]:
diffuse_irrad['Hay-Davies'] = pvlib.irradiance.haydavies(surface_tilt,
                               surface_azimuth,
                               dhi=tmy_data.DHI,
                               dni=tmy_data.DNI,
                               dni_extra=dni_extra,
                               solar_zenith=solpos.apparent_zenith,
                               solar_azimuth=solpos.azimuth)

Isotropic


In [13]:
diffuse_irrad['Isotropic'] = pvlib.irradiance.isotropic(surface_tilt,
                               dhi=tmy_data.DHI)

King Diffuse model


In [14]:
diffuse_irrad['King'] = pvlib.irradiance.king(surface_tilt,
                               dhi=tmy_data.DHI,
                               ghi=tmy_data.GHI,
                               solar_zenith=solpos.apparent_zenith)

Klucher Model


In [15]:
diffuse_irrad['Klucher'] = pvlib.irradiance.klucher(surface_tilt, surface_azimuth,
                                                    dhi=tmy_data.DHI,
                                                    ghi=tmy_data.GHI,
                                                    solar_zenith=solpos.apparent_zenith,
                                                    solar_azimuth=solpos.azimuth)

Reindl


In [16]:
diffuse_irrad['Reindl'] = pvlib.irradiance.reindl(surface_tilt,
                               surface_azimuth,
                               dhi=tmy_data.DHI,
                               dni=tmy_data.DNI,
                               ghi=tmy_data.GHI,
                               dni_extra=dni_extra,
                               solar_zenith=solpos.apparent_zenith,
                               solar_azimuth=solpos.azimuth)

Calculate yearly, monthly, daily sums.


In [17]:
yearly = diffuse_irrad.resample('A').sum().dropna().squeeze() / 1000.0  # kWh
monthly = diffuse_irrad.resample('M', kind='period').sum() / 1000.0
daily = diffuse_irrad.resample('D').sum() / 1000.0

Plot Results


In [18]:
ax = diffuse_irrad.plot(title='In-plane diffuse irradiance', alpha=.75, lw=1)
ax.set_ylim(0, 800)
ylabel = ax.set_ylabel('Diffuse Irradiance [W]')
plt.legend();



In [19]:
diffuse_irrad.describe()


Out[19]:
Perez Hay-Davies Isotropic King Klucher Reindl
count 8760.000000 8760.000000 8760.000000 8760.000000 8760.000000 4578.000000
mean 55.398143 52.457636 49.094681 53.067042 53.610788 100.774025
std 80.439197 75.436304 72.134083 76.340191 78.795999 78.355679
min 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000
25% 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 39.151044
50% 3.732051 4.114161 3.732051 4.009573 3.732051 87.163898
75% 95.389001 91.217201 81.172105 91.749845 90.879727 145.523600
max 580.694617 533.102519 523.420126 538.809780 544.508380 535.970735

In [20]:
diffuse_irrad.dropna().plot(kind='density');


Daily


In [21]:
ax_daily = daily.tz_convert('UTC').plot(title='Daily diffuse irradiation')
ylabel = ax_daily.set_ylabel('Irradiation [kWh]')


Monthly


In [22]:
ax_monthly = monthly.plot(title='Monthly average diffuse irradiation', kind='bar')
ylabel = ax_monthly.set_ylabel('Irradiation [kWh]')


Yearly


In [23]:
yearly.plot(kind='barh');


Compute the mean deviation from measured for each model and display as a function of the model


In [24]:
mean_yearly = yearly.mean()
yearly_mean_deviation = (yearly - mean_yearly) / yearly * 100.0
yearly_mean_deviation.plot(kind='bar');



In [ ]: