Commercial implementation of a snow impact model for PV performance prediction

Studies have shown how to combine snow depth measurements with commonly available meteorological data to estimate the contribution of snow cover to PV power loss. A key input to these methods is daily representative snow depth data, which exist within the NSRDB's TMY2 dataset. NREL's System Advisor Model pairs a snow impact algorithm with TMY2 data. This paper compares the TMY2 snow depth data to historical actuals and suggests an alternative means of implementing snow impact algorithms.