Snow loss estimations of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in northern latitudes are important as project financing requires highly accurate energy generation estimates to provide long-term performance guarantees. As the climate changes, annual snowfall is changing. This study quantifies the losses to potential PV electricity generation due to snow, for all areas of Northern Western Hemisphere now and for 2040, 2080 and 2100 for climate change scenarios SSP126 and SSP585. Results show in 20 years even in the most optimistic SSP126 scenario many areas in the northern U.S. and southern Canada will be reduced below 5% snow losses. In the more pessimistic SSP585 scenario, heavy snow regions become nearly snowless. Overall, climate change is substantially reducing snow losses for PV systems over most of North America. As such the time dependent reduction in snow losses for a PV in northern latitudes should be included in modeling of the life cycle performance.
- All data and free and open-source software used in the study can be acquired from https://osf.io/ndq8e/ under the GNU General Public License (GPL) 3.0.
See also[edit | edit source]
- Snow Losses for Photovoltaic Systems: Validating the Marion and Townsend Models
- Monofacial vs bifacial solar photovoltaic systems in snowy environments
- A new method to determine the effects of hydrodynamic surface coatings on the snow shedding effectiveness of solar photovoltaic modules
- Impact of Snow and Ground Interference on Photovoltaic Electric System Performance
- Prediction of energy effects on photovoltaic systems due to snowfall events
- Open Solar Outdoors Test Field
- Solar resource measurement for PV applications
- Performance of Bifacial Photovoltaic Modules on a Dual-Axis Tracker in a High-Latitude, High-Albedo Environment
- Differences in Snow Shedding in Photovoltaic Systems with Framed and Frameless Modules
- Image Analysis Method for Quantifying Snow Losses on PV Systems
- A Review of the Effects of Haze on Solar Photovoltaic Performance
