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Horizon Profiling Methods for Photovoltaic Arrays

Braid, Jennifer L.; Pierce, Benjamin G.

In this work, we introduce and compare the results of several methods for determining the horizon profile at a PV site, and compare their use cases and limitations. The methods in this paper include horizon detection from time-series irradiance or performance data, modeling from GIS topology data, manual theodolite measurements, and camera-based horizon detection. We compare various combinations of these methods using data from 4 Regional Test Center sites in the US, and 3 World Bank sites in Nepal. The results show many differences between these methods, and we recommend the most practical solutions for various use-cases.