Estimation of Solar Spectral Irradiance Using Meteorological Data and Analysis of Optimal Conditions for Solar Power Generation

This study proposes an approximate model to estimate the solar radiation spectrum intensity in Seoul, Republic of Korea, for the year 2024, aiming to analyze optimal conditions related to energy generation. Since the solar radiation spectrum varies with atmospheric conditions, accurately predicting it typically requires complex spectral radiation models. However, such models entail high computational costs, hindering real-time application. To address this, this study introduces a simplified approximation model using only direct normal irradiance (DNI) among real-time meteorological elements, employing linear scaling of the standard spectrum (ASTM G-173). This model first estimates DNI using global horizontal irradiance (GHI) and solar position information (such as zenith angle), then linearly adjusts the standard spectrum to compute real-time spectrum intensity. The model approximates realistic DNI values by correcting various meteorological parameters, including zenith angle, cloud cover, and visibility. The analysis shows that GHI exhibits stable seasonal patterns, peaking in summer and minimizing in winter. In contrast, DNI demonstrates significant temporal variability and frequent abnormal peaks (e.g., exceeding 9,000 W/m^2), highlighting the importance of data refinement and anomaly detection in predicting energy generation. In conclusion, GHI is suitable for general photovoltaic analyses, whereas DNI is crucial for direct-beam sensitive systems like concentrated solar power (CSP), requiring meticulous data quality management. Future research should focus on identifying the causes of DNI anomalies and developing real-time quality control algorithms.

Hall Effect Thruster Forecasting using a Topological Approach for Data Assimilation

Hall Effect Thrusters (HETs) are electric thrusters that eject heavy ionized gas particles from the spacecraft to generate thrust. Although traditionally they were used for station keeping, recently They have been used for interplanetary space missions due to their high delta-V potential and their operational longevity in contrast to other thrusters, e.g., chemical. However, the operation of HETs involves complex processes such as ionization of gases, strong magnetic fields, and complicated solar panel power supply interactions. Therefore, their operation is extremely difficult to model thus necessitating Data Assimilation (DA) approaches for estimating and predicting their operational states. Because HET's operating environment is often noisy with non-Gaussian sources, this significantly limits applicable DA tools. We describe a topological approach for data assimilation that bypasses these limitations that does not depend on the noise model, and utilize it to forecast spatiotemporal plume field states of HETs. Our approach is a generalization of the Topological Approach for Data Assimilation (TADA) method that allows including different forecast functions. We show how TADA can be combined with the Long Short-Term Memory network for accurate forecasting. We then apply our approach to high-fidelity Hall Effect Thruster (HET) simulation data from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) rocket propulsion division where we demonstrate the forecast resiliency of TADA on noise contaminated, high-dimensional data.

Benchmarking Deep Learning-Based Methods for Irradiance Nowcasting with Sky Images

To address the high levels of uncertainty associated with photovoltaic energy, an increasing number of studies focusing on short-term solar forecasting have been published. Most of these studies use deep learning-based models to directly forecast a solar irradiance or photovoltaic power value given an input of sky image sequences. Recently, however, advances in generative modeling have led to approaches that divide the forecasting problem into two sub-problems: 1) future event prediction, i.e. generating future sky images; and 2) solar irradiance or photovoltaic power nowcasting, i.e. predicting the concurrent value from a single image. One such approach is the SkyGPT model, where they show that the potential for improvement is much larger for the nowcasting model than for the generative model. Thus, in this paper, we focus on the solar irradiance nowcasting problem and conduct an extensive benchmark of deep learning architectures across the widely-used Folsom, SIRTA and NREL datasets. Moreover, we perform ablation experiments on different training configurations and data processing techniques, including the choice of the target variable used for training and adjustments of the timestamp alignment between images and irradiance measurements. In particular, we draw attention to a potential error associated with the sky image timestamps in the Folsom dataset and a possible fix is discussed. All our results are reported in terms of both the root mean squared error and the mean absolute error and, by leveraging the three datasets, we demonstrate that our findings are consistent across different solar stations.

Accelerating High-Efficiency Organic Photovoltaic Discovery via Pretrained Graph Neural Networks and Generative Reinforcement Learning

Organic photovoltaic (OPV) materials offer a promising avenue toward cost-effective solar energy utilization. However, optimizing donor-acceptor (D-A) combinations to achieve high power conversion efficiency (PCE) remains a significant challenge. In this work, we propose a framework that integrates large-scale pretraining of graph neural networks (GNNs) with a GPT-2 (Generative Pretrained Transformer 2)-based reinforcement learning (RL) strategy to design OPV molecules with potentially high PCE. This approach produces candidate molecules with predicted efficiencies approaching 21\%, although further experimental validation is required. Moreover, we conducted a preliminary fragment-level analysis to identify structural motifs recognized by the RL model that may contribute to enhanced PCE, thus providing design guidelines for the broader research community. To facilitate continued discovery, we are building the largest open-source OPV dataset to date, expected to include nearly 3,000 donor-acceptor pairs. Finally, we discuss plans to collaborate with experimental teams on synthesizing and characterizing AI-designed molecules, which will provide new data to refine and improve our predictive and generative models.

Risk-Based Thresholding for Reliable Anomaly Detection in Concentrated Solar Power Plants

Efficient and reliable operation of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants is essential for meeting the growing demand for sustainable energy. However, high-temperature solar receivers face severe operational risks, such as freezing, deformation, and corrosion, resulting in costly downtime and maintenance. To monitor CSP plants, cameras mounted on solar receivers record infrared images at irregular intervals ranging from one to five minutes throughout the day. Anomalous images can be detected by thresholding an anomaly score, where the threshold is chosen to optimize metrics such as the F1-score on a validation set. This work proposes a framework for generating more reliable decision thresholds with finite-sample coverage guarantees on any chosen risk function. Our framework also incorporates an abstention mechanism, allowing high-risk predictions to be deferred to domain experts. Second, we propose a density forecasting method to estimate the likelihood of an observed image given a sequence of previously observed images, using this likelihood as its anomaly score. Third, we analyze the deployment results of our framework across multiple training scenarios over several months for two CSP plants. This analysis provides valuable insights to our industry partner for optimizing maintenance operations. Finally, given the confidential nature of our dataset, we provide an extended simulated dataset, leveraging recent advancements in generative modeling to create diverse thermal images that simulate multiple CSP plants. Our code is publicly available.

Zero-shot Load Forecasting for Integrated Energy Systems: A Large Language Model-based Framework with Multi-task Learning

The growing penetration of renewable energy sources in power systems has increased the complexity and uncertainty of load forecasting, especially for integrated energy systems with multiple energy carriers. Traditional forecasting methods heavily rely on historical data and exhibit limited transferability across different scenarios, posing significant challenges for emerging applications in smart grids and energy internet. This paper proposes the TSLLM-Load Forecasting Mechanism, a novel zero-shot load forecasting framework based on large language models (LLMs) to address these challenges. The framework consists of three key components: a data preprocessing module that handles multi-source energy load data, a time series prompt generation module that bridges the semantic gap between energy data and LLMs through multi-task learning and similarity alignment, and a prediction module that leverages pre-trained LLMs for accurate forecasting. The framework's effectiveness was validated on a real-world dataset comprising load profiles from 20 Australian solar-powered households, demonstrating superior performance in both conventional and zero-shot scenarios. In conventional testing, our method achieved a Mean Squared Error (MSE) of 0.4163 and a Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 0.3760, outperforming existing approaches by at least 8\%. In zero-shot prediction experiments across 19 households, the framework maintained consistent accuracy with a total MSE of 11.2712 and MAE of 7.6709, showing at least 12\% improvement over current methods. The results validate the framework's potential for accurate and transferable load forecasting in integrated energy systems, particularly beneficial for renewable energy integration and smart grid applications.

Intra-day Solar and Power Forecast for Optimization of Intraday Market Participation

The prediction of solar irradiance enhances reliability in photovoltaic (PV) solar plant generation and grid integration. In Colombia, PV plants face penalties if energy production deviates beyond governmental thresholds from intraday market offers. This research employs Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and Bidirectional-LSTM (Bi-LSTM) models, utilizing meteorological data from a PV plant in El Paso, Cesar, Colombia, to predict solar irradiance with a 6-hour horizon and 10-minute resolution. While Bi-LSTM showed superior performance, the LSTM model achieved comparable results with significantly reduced training time (6 hours versus 18 hours), making it computationally advantageous. The LSTM predictions were averaged to create an hourly resolution model, evaluated using Mean Absolute Error, Root-Mean-Square Error, Normalized Root-Mean-Square Error, and Mean Absolute Percentage Error metrics. Comparison with the Global Forecast System (GFS) revealed similar performance, with both models effectively capturing daily solar irradiance patterns. The forecast model integrates with an Object-Oriented power production model, enabling accurate energy offers in the intraday market while minimizing penalty costs.

CT-PatchTST: Channel-Time Patch Time-Series Transformer for Long-Term Renewable Energy Forecasting

Accurately predicting renewable energy output is crucial for the efficient integration of solar and wind power into modern energy systems. This study develops and evaluates an advanced deep learning model, Channel-Time Patch Time-Series Transformer (CT-PatchTST), to forecast the power output of photovoltaic and wind energy systems using annual offshore wind power, onshore wind power, and solar power generation data from Denmark. While the original Patch Time-Series Transformer(PatchTST) model employs a channel-independent (CI) approach, it tends to overlook inter-channel relationships during training, potentially leading to a loss of critical information. To address this limitation and further leverage the benefits of increased data granularity brought by CI, we propose CT-PatchTST. This enhanced model improves the processing of inter-channel information while maintaining the advantages of the channel-independent approach. The predictive performance of CT-PatchTST is rigorously analyzed, demonstrating its ability to provide precise and reliable energy forecasts. This work contributes to improving the predictability of renewable energy systems, supporting their broader adoption and integration into energy grids.

CloudCast -- Total Cloud Cover Nowcasting with Machine Learning

Cloud cover plays a critical role in weather prediction and impacts several sectors, including agriculture, solar power generation, and aviation. Despite advancements in numerical weather prediction (NWP) models, forecasting total cloud cover remains challenging due to the small-scale nature of cloud formation processes. In this study, we introduce CloudCast, a convolutional neural network (CNN) based on the U-Net architecture, designed to predict total cloud cover (TCC) up to five hours ahead. Trained on five years of satellite data, CloudCast significantly outperforms traditional NWP models and optical flow methods. Compared to a reference NWP model, CloudCast achieves a 24% lower mean absolute error and reduces multi-category prediction errors by 46%. The model demonstrates strong performance, particularly in capturing the large-scale structure of cloud cover in the first few forecast hours, though later predictions are subject to blurring and underestimation of cloud formation. An ablation study identified the optimal input features and loss functions, with MAE-based models performing the best. CloudCast has been integrated into the Finnish Meteorological Institute's operational nowcasting system, where it improves cloud cover forecasts used by public and private sector clients. While CloudCast is limited by a relatively short skillful lead time of about three hours, future work aims to extend this through more complex network architectures and higher-resolution data. CloudCast code is available at https://github.com/fmidev/cloudcast.

Learning a local trading strategy: deep reinforcement learning for grid-scale renewable energy integration

Variable renewable generation increases the challenge of balancing power supply and demand. Grid-scale batteries co-located with generation can help mitigate this misalignment. This paper explores the use of reinforcement learning (RL) for operating grid-scale batteries co-located with solar power. Our results show RL achieves an average of 61% (and up to 96%) of the approximate theoretical optimal (non-causal) operation, outperforming advanced control methods on average. Our findings suggest RL may be preferred when future signals are hard to predict. Moreover, RL has two significant advantages compared to simpler rules-based control: (1) that solar energy is more effectively shifted towards high demand periods, and (2) increased diversity of battery dispatch across different locations, reducing potential ramping issues caused by super-position of many similar actions.