Evaluating different upscaling approaches to derive the actual power of distributed PV systems

The power generated by distributed PV systems within a given region is an important information e.g. for grid operators. But PV power measurements are often only available for a small fraction of systems. Hence, various upscaling approaches estimate the power of a large number of unmeasured photovoltaic systems based on these measured reference units. This paper evaluates the application of different methods for upscaling PV power. Results show overall improvements up to ≈ 13% in terms of RMSETCl, mostly by the consideration of the module orientation and a spatial interpolation. Additionally a significant decline in the variance of MBETCl is encountered due to a calibration of all PV systems.The evaluation is extended by an economic assessment, which assumes a quadratic relation between the simulation error and the costs. When compared to a standard approach, the presented methods reach cost savings of 15-25 % on average.