Method to characterize variability of photovoltaics power output

Abstract

Impacts due to variability of intermittent renewables power sources connected to electrical grids becomes a critical topic especially when the rate of such energy keeps increasing. In order to ensure power grid operation quality, the grid operator has to identify these effects by carefully study the behaviour of these fluctuations. This work tries to define a method of characterizing photovoltaic power variation basing on measurement data collection of different power plants. The output power was collected from four photovoltaics plants located in Martinique. Two function are used to fit the density probability. A day classification is also performed. The result can be used in statistical study of the power grid with a good accuracy.