Global Ranking of Losses to Photovoltaic Power

Abstract

Solar power is growing quickly and especially helpful in achieving decarbonization goals. With more installed solar generation capacity, understanding losses becomes increasingly important for optimizing solar development and planning. This paper will attempt to quantify and attribute solar losses globally, focusing on soiling, snow, and temperature as individual losses and how they relate to each other. This will be done by comparing simulated solar power output under a variety of different scenarios with and without the effects of soiling.