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A common critique of photovoltaic energy is the susceptibility of the systems to high variability--passing clouds can affect a site's day-to-day energy production substantially. This research developed a tool to simulate photovoltaic energy systems in several scenarios throughout the state of Florida and quantifies the hour-to-hour impact of these systems on the statewide generation mix using 11 years of historical weather data. While the hourly changes in aggregate system output for distributed PV systems was predictable between months, finer geographic granularity of irradiance data coupled with subhourly time intervals are required to further develop this model into one that is indispensable for utility system operators.Index Terms-Forecasting, interconnected power systems, photovoltaic power systems, power generation planning, and power system meteorological factors.

Initiated in 2008, the Solar Energy Grid Integration Systems (SEGIS) program is a partnership involving the U.S. DOE, Sandia National Laboratories, private sector companies, electric utilities, and universities. Projects supported under the program have focused on the complete-system development of solar technologies, with the dual goal of expanding utility-scale penetration and addressing new challenges of connecting large-scale solar installations in higher penetrations to the electric grid. 4The Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC), its partners, and Sandia National Laboratories have successfully collaborated to complete the work under the third and final stage of the SEGIS initiative. The SEGIS program was a three-year, three-stage project that include conceptual design and market analysis in Stage 1, prototype development and testing in Stage 2, and moving toward commercialization in Stage 3.Under this program, the FSEC SEGIS team developed a comprehensive vision that has guided technology development that sets one methodology for merging photovoltaic (PV) and smart-grid technologies. The FSEC team's objective in the SEGIS project is to remove barriers to large-scale general integration of PV and to enhance the value proposition of photovoltaic energy by enabling PV to act as much as possible as if it were at the very least equivalent to a conventional utility power plant. It was immediately apparent that the advanced power electronics of these advanced inverters will go far beyond conventional power plants, making high penetrations of PV not just acceptable, but desirable.This report summarizes a three-year effort to develop, validate and commercialize Grid-Smart Inverters for wider photovoltaic utilization, particularly in the utility sector. This project was a team collaboration between the Florida Solar Energy