Pre-Construction Modeling of Shade Loss Due to Wind Turbine Shadow Flicker on Solar PV

As the demand for renewable energy grows, sites are considering the benefits of developing wind and solar hybrid generation by adding solar PV around pre-existing wind power plants. As developers continue to consider wind and solar hybrid sites for utility scale power generation, questions arise about how the technologies can inadvertently affect each other's energy outputs. Common industry modeling software, such as PVsyst, incorporate shading models that capture energy loss due to shading from nearby objects. The ability to model the shading effects of wind turbines in PVsyst, however, is limited to modeling as a static object. Operating wind turbines cast moving shadows upon surrounding land and their rotating blades can cause a dynamic shading effect known as shadow flicker. In this study, weS will develop a method of estimating the solar energy yield impacts of shadow flicker given a site-specific design, by combining analyses from both Openwind and PVsyst. In developing this method, ULS will test the sensitivity of different inputs including: (1) The use of a Typical Meteorological Year vs Timeseries to understand the sensitivity of the input resource file on the modeled shadow flicker (2) The distances between wind turbines and solar PV panels to understand the impact of the project layout and develop an understanding of practical offset distances (3) The receptor position and density defined by Openwind, to inform a methodology that assigns project design specific receptors ULS will demonstrate a method to quantify solar energy losses due to nearby wind turbines that can be used in developing or testing design and predicting impacts of flickering light on solar technology.