Estimation of Residential PV Power Generation Using Panel Azimuth Information

The high integration of residential Photovoltaics (PVs) to the low voltage distribution network, poses several challenges to the operation of the power systems today. The main reason is that roof-top solar PV sites are usually unobservable by the distribution system operators (DSOs) and consequently their generation is not measured. Therefore, the accurate knowledge regarding the real time generation of the residential PVs will become an imperative need. In this paper, a methodology for estimating the power generated by all the residential PVs of a certain area using the available information from some observable residential PVs is proposed. 
Considering the high impact of the solar panel orientation on the PV generation, the proposed method clusters together the residential PVs with the same orientation. The results show that there is a maximum reduction in the mean absolute error by 62% in the summer season for 25 degree panel azimuth in comparison to the case that the generation of the unobservable PVs are estimated without using the orientation of the solar panels. The methodology was validated using real data from residential PVs.