PV-Live dataset - Measurements of global horizontal and tilted solar irradiance

The PV-Live dataset comprises data from a network of 40 solar irradiance measurement stations across the German state of Baden-Württemberg. All stations measure global horizontal irradiance and temperature with a pyranometer, and global tilted irradiance in east, south, and west direction with tilt angles of 25° with three photovoltaic reference cells in minute resolution. A quality control scheme has been developed specifically for this dataset and is applied to the measurements before publication. The minute resolution irradiance and temperature measurements are published with the derived quality flags. A description of the dataset and the quality control scheme is given in Lorenz et al. (2022) and Lorenz et al. (2020).

The dataset contains data from September 2020 onwards. It will be continuously extended by adding data of the previous month on a monthly basis.

QUALITY FLAGS

Two types of flags are provided with the data. Each sensor is assigned a general quality flag, which is based on a combination of different tests. In addition, a shading flag is given, which is not sensor specific, i.e. it applies to all irradiance sensors simultaneously. The flags can have the levels 'passed, all tests complete', 'passed, not all tests complete', 'failed tests, likely erroneous' or 'failed tests, most likely erroneous'. If the flag level of the general quality flags is 'failed tests, most likely erroneous' the corresponding measurement value is set to NaN.

DATA FORMAT

The data is published as monthly .zip archives. Each archive contains the following files:

1. Tab separated data files (tng000XX_YYYY-MM.tsv) for each station, containing measurements and quality flags of one month

2. Tab separated station location metadata (metadata_stations_YYYY-MM.tsv)

3. Metadata of the dataset describing variable names and quality flag levels (metadata_measurements.json)

4. General comments on data availability and quality for the month (comments_quality_control_YYYY-MM.txt)

5. Log file of changes (change_log_YYYY-MM.txt)

Station location metadata is given on a monthly basis because stations can be relocated. Therefore, we recommend to use the metadata valid for its corresponding month.

VERSION UPDATES

Version 7:

- Recalculation of height information for all stations

- One station has been moved to a new, nearby location on 16th September 2021

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The data have been collected and processed by Fraunhofer ISE in the framework of PV-Live, a project in cooperation with TransnetBW.

We thank our station partners for cooperation in installing and maintaining our measurement stations: EnBW Solar, Badenova, Pohlen Solar, Oekogeno Solar7, Ecovision, Hochschule Ulm, Hofgemeinschaft Heggelbach, Soltechnics-solution and the Stadtwerke Karlsruhe, Grünstadt, Buchen, Crailsheim, Schwäbisch Hall, Pforzheim, Konstanz, Waldshut-Tiengen, Schwäbisch Gmünd, Ravensburg, Eberbach, Baden-Baden.