The impact of solar radiation variability and data discrepancies on the design of PV systems

Different information sources on solar radiation data are usually available for a same site. Significant discrepancies can be observed between these different sources, leading to a certain taste of incertitude. An in-depth analysis of such a problem reveals that this is coherent with the natural and unavoidable variability of the solar radiation phenomenon, and that all the information sources can be considered as equally confident.This article describes in a first place the different available solar radiation information sources for Algeria. Their confidence is analyzed afterwards at the light of the variability observed in the long-term series of crude data of a particular site.Finally, the consequences of solar radiation data discrepancy in terms of energy production and PV sizing uncertainties are also analyzed.