Aerosols for Concentrating Solar Electricity Production Forecasts: Requirement Quantification and ECMWF/MACC Aerosol Forecast Assessment

Abstract

The potential for transferring a larger share of our energy supply toward renewable energy is a widely discussed goal in society, economics, environment, and climate-related programs. For a larger share of electricity to come from fluctuating solar and wind energy-based electricity, production forecasts are required to ensure successful grid integration. Concentrating solar power holds the potential to make the fluctuating solar electricity a dispatchable resource by using both heat storage systems and solar production forecasts based on a reliable weather prediction. These solar technologies exploit the direct irradiance at the surface, which is a quantity very dependent on the aerosol extinction with values up to 100%. Results from present-day numerical weather forecasts are inadequate, as they generally use climatologies for dealing with aerosol extinction. Therefore, meteorological forecasts have to be extended by chemical weather forecasts. The paper aims at quantifying on a global scale the question of whether and where daily mean or hourly forecasts are required, or if persistence is sufficient in some regions. It assesses the performance of recently introduced NWP aerosol schemes by using the ECMWF/Monitoring Atmospheric Composition and Climate (MACC) forecast, which is a preparatory activity for the upcoming European Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) Atmosphere Service.