Solar Energy Yield Assessment Validation: Comparing Pre-Construction Energy Estimates to Plant Production

In the last few years, asset owners, asset managers, independent engineers, and academics have reported underperformance across their solar asset portfolios as compared with preconstruction fifty percent probability of exceedance (P50) energy production estimates [1]–[4]. Several causes of bias in P50 estimates have recently been identified that had not been historically captured, notably sub-hourly clipping losses, terrain shading losses and wind stow losses. A comparison was completed of current solar generation modeling methods that include advanced modeling techniques and validated them against actual project performance.