Using a Multi-view Convolutional Neural Network to monitor solar irradiance

In the last years, there is an increasing interest for enhanced method for assessing and monitoring the level of the global horizontal irradiance (GHI) in photovoltaic (PV) systems, fostered by the massive deployment of this energy. Thermopile or photodiode pyranometers provide point measurements, which may not be adequate in cases when areal information is important (as for PV network or large PV plants monitoring). The use of All Sky Imagers paired convolutional neural networks, a powerful technique for estimation, has been proposed as a plausible alternative. In this work, a convolutional neural network architecture is presented to estimate solar irradiance from sets of ground-level Total Sky Images. This neural network is capable of combining images from three cameras. Results show that this approach is more accurate than using only images from a single camera. It has also been shown to improve the performance of two other approaches: a cloud fraction model and a feature extraction model. This work has been made possible by the Ministerio de Economia y Empresa of Spain, under the project PROSOL (ENE2014-56126-C2). Authors from the University of Jaen are supported by the Junta de Andalucía (Research group TEP-220) and by FEDER funds. This work has been made possible by projects funded by Agencia Estatal de Investigación (PID2019-107455RB-C21 and PID2019-107455RB-C22 / AEI / 10.13039/501100011033).