Irradiance Field Reconstruction From Partial Observability of Solar Radiation

Photovoltaic (PV) panels have become a significant source of electric power generation. These panels are considered to be one of the cleanest energy production systems available, so their spread is expected to increase in the following years, especially because recent technologies have reduced the cost of these panels. Unlike classic energy production methodologies that are connected to the high-voltage transmission power lines, many PV panels are connected directly to the lower voltage distribution networks of the electric power grid, making the management of the grid an ongoing challenge. In this letter, we address this challenge and show that the irradiance field that is required to calculate the expected power output of the PV panels can be estimated in a simplistic methodology, using partial observability of the solar radiation. We validate our proposed methodology by conducting an empirical study that uses real data of the solar radiation taken from satellites, and we show that even when the observability of the solar radiation is as low as 10% (meaning that only one in ten points of interest in a regular grid is observable), the irradiance field can be accurately estimated.