Comparison of Photovoltaic Plant Performance Estimation Models: A Case Study for Fortaleza, Brazil

We present two methodologies for estimating the electricity production of a photovoltaic (PV) plant, namely the PVUSA model versus a model proposed by Dias et al., applied to a case study of a 1.5 kWp PV plant in a grid connected system in Fortaleza, Brazil. Both models are based on linear regression to determine coefficients that, combined with the necessary parameters, can estimate the production of a PV plant. The analysis considers the parameters of irradiation, ambient temperature and wind measured at 8-minute intervals for two different months of a same year (March and October) at the installation site for the models. It will be observed that the PVUSA model was not suitable for applications in Fortaleza, with errors higher than 20%. Differently from the model proposed by Dias et al., which presented errors of less than 3.5%. It is also observed the influence of the wind for the estimation of the electricity production and for the actual measured production, serving as a parameter of validation of the proposed methodologies. And, finally, a comparison between two typical days of the two months under analysis is performed in order to observe the assertiveness of energy prediction.