To learn more or request a demo, email team@solarunsoiled.com or go to www.solarunsoiled.com
De-Risking Solar Cleaning Decisions with Probabilistic Rain Predictions
Solar Unsoiled’s Rain Risk Feature – Powered by Salient Predictions – Offers Data-Informed Decisions on Panel Washing in an Uncertain Climate
Unknown risks of rain can make committing to expensive cleanings difficult. In areas where soiling losses are heavily impacted by rain [read about ‘dirty’ vs. ‘persistent’ soiling environments here], Solar Unsoiled provides seasonally-optimized cleaning schedules. Optimization windows take into account 10 years of historical precipitation trends, but the risk of unexpected rain events is ever-present, especially in a changing climate. These seasonal anomalies contribute to fear around spending solar O&M budgets: decision makers don’t want to be in the situation where they’ve just cleaned their panels, only to have a rain event occur a few weeks later – one that could have recovered the asset’s efficiency losses at no cost.
Solar Unsoiled’s feature, powered by Salient, de-risks rain unknowns. What is the probability of rain tomorrow? How about in the next 7 days? Or in the upcoming weeks? If it does rain, how much will impact the soiling on my panels? These are the kinds of questions solar asset owners and operators are asking when it comes time to schedule and implement optimized cleanings. Solar Unsoiled and Salient Predictions teamed up to make the answers easily available and digestible right in the Solar Unsoiled platform.
View of a Site Overview page from Solar Unsoiled’s app for a site in Arizona. Based on the high chance of rain during the optimized cleaning period, this customer should cancel the upcoming cleaning they have scheduled for November 30th.
Using probabilistic rain predictions as a ‘red-light, green-light’ for cleanings. Solar Unsoiled’s rain risk feature is active for solar farms in regions where soiling losses are influenced by rain events. At these sites, proactive, optimized cleanings have been recommended to Solar Unsoiled customers. Leading up to the cleaning date, customers can use the rain risk feature to see the likelihood of an upcoming rain event and determine if a change in plans is warranted. The forecasts in this feature – powered by Salient Predictions – show the likelihoods of different rain event scenarios over various forecast periods. These forecasts are updated daily, allowing users the ability to see changes in likelihoods and make necessary scheduling adjustments if a high probability of rain is evident.
No forecast is perfect. How does this help? No forecast is correct 100% of the time. But reliable, calibrated forecasts make a big difference over no forecast, or an unreliable forecast, over time. Salient climate scientist Brian Zimmerman describes how and why this is the case on Climate.gov using basketball as a metaphor.
Decision support systems, even if based on non-perfect estimations, provide better outcomes than random decision-making. NOAA Climate.gov image, adapted from the original by Brain Zimmerman.
The Salient and Solar Unsoiled ‘red-light, green-light’ feature won’t always be perfect, but sticking to a decision support system in the face of unexpected seasonal events will, in the long run, enable an O&M decision-maker to maximize profit – whether that be performing an optimized cleaning or holding off for rain to do the job.
The bottom line: Leveraging Salient’s predictions in a decision-support and risk-mitigation feature, Solar Unsoiled equips its customers with the tools to make informed decisions when spending tight O&M budgets on soiling mitigation. This feature is an example of how Solar Unsoiled and Salient are combining technologies to unlock data-informed insights for the solar energy industry [read more about the collaboration].
To learn more about Salient’s S2S weather forecasts for decision makers, request a demo