Faroese contribution to solar forecasts

The University of the Faroe Islands is one of 25 globally distributed institutions that teamed up to harmonize efforts in search for the best methods to forecast solar radiation

The cooperation has resulted in the article: “Verification of deterministic solar forecasts” which will appear in the journal “Solar Energy”. The teams are working in USA, the Faroe Islands, Schweden, Germany, France, Romania, Spain, Marocco, Island of La Reunion, Singapore, China and Australia.

The topic of solar forecasts has gained importance due to the worldwide trend to base the power supply on harvesting the natural flows as wind or solar energy.

On the Faroe Island this concerns up to now mainly the use of wind power but the first steps to supplement this by the use of solar energy had been taken, most prominently by the installation of a big solar power station on Suðuroy last year.

As for both, the use of wind and solar power one must deal with the uncertainty whether we can expect enough windspeed or sunshine will be available tomorrow or whether the diesel or oil power stations will have to be used. Thus, the need for solar forecasts and – as this is a global problem – the international cooperation to find solution to tackle this topic.

Here the Faroe Islands part is taken up by professor in energy engineering, Hans Georg Beyer who has been working with solar power and wind power for many years.

Preprint of the article is here.

The journal, Solar Energy is here.