Photovoltaic Mean Capacity Factor for the Conterminous US
Dates
Publication Date
2021
Start Date
1998
End Date
2018
Citation
Chambers, S.N., and Duniway, M.C., 2021, Photovoltaic Mean Capacity Factor for the Conterminous US.
Summary
A raster dataset representing multi-year mean (1998-2018) capacity factors (CF) for a solar photovoltaic system based on current technology, for the Conterminous United States. These data are calculated using ½ hourly irradiance values from the National Solar Radiation Database (NSRDB) Sengupta et al. (2018), and the Systems Advisor Model (Blair et al. 2014). Cell values represent the estimated capacity factor (a ratio of net generation to the maximum generation) for photovoltaic energy production for a 1-axis tracking system (technology details found in Maclaurin et al. 2019). The continuous raster were put into 8 quantile bins for interpretation and reporting. For more information and further data, please visit https://maps.nrel.gov/. [...]
Summary
A raster dataset representing multi-year mean (1998-2018) capacity factors (CF) for a solar photovoltaic system based on current technology, for the Conterminous United States. These data are calculated using ½ hourly irradiance values from the National Solar Radiation Database (NSRDB) Sengupta et al. (2018), and the Systems Advisor Model (Blair et al. 2014). Cell values represent the estimated capacity factor (a ratio of net generation to the maximum generation) for photovoltaic energy production for a 1-axis tracking system (technology details found in Maclaurin et al. 2019). The continuous raster were put into 8 quantile bins for interpretation and reporting. For more information and further data, please visit https://maps.nrel.gov/.
Sengupta, M., Xie, Y., Lopez, A., Habte, A., Maclaurin, G., and Shelby, J., 2018, The National Solar Radiation Data Base (NSRDB): Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, v. 89, p. 51-60.
Blair, N., Dobos, A, Freeman, J., Neises, T., Wagner, M., Ferguson, T., Gilman, P., Janzou, S. (2014). System Advisor Model, SAM 2014.1.14: General Description. NREL/TP-6A20-61019. National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Golden, CO. Accessed October 31, 2016.
Maclaurin, G, Grue, N., Lopez, A., Heimiller, D. 2019. The Renewable Energy Potential (reV) Model: A Geospatial Platform for Technical Potential and Supply Curve Modeling. NREL/TP-6A20-73067.
The purpose of this dataset is to represent the average solar capacity in the Conterminous United States. This dataset was developed to support use of this layer in Smart Energy web tools.
