Quantifying the solar impacts of wildfire smoke in western North America

Keelin, Patrick; Kubiniec, Alex; Bhat, A.R.S.; Pérez, Marc; Dise, John; Perez, Richard; Schlemmer, James

doi:10.1109/pvsc43889.2021.9518440

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 3 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…However, the existing research works on the impacts of wildfire smoke on renewable power generation are surprisingly limited. The work in [22] tracked the increase of aerosols in the atmosphere since the early 2000s, showing the impact of the rising AOT on solar production, specially in California, in 2020. In [23,24], the authors studied the correlations between solar PV generation and the PM 2.5 in California during recent wildfire events.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wildfire Smoke, Air Quality, and Renewable Energy—Examining the Impacts of the 2020 Wildfire Season in Washington State

2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The 2020 wildfire season was devastating, setting negative records in many states and regions around the world, especially in North America. Five of the six largest fires in California’s recorded history burned in 2020. In the Pacific Northwest region of the United States, Oregon and eastern Washington almost doubled their 10-year average of burnt acres recently. Depending on wind speed and direction conditions, the smoke from wildfires may significantly impact the air quality and reduce solar photovoltaic (PV) generation even in regions located hundreds of kilometers away from high-risk zones. Thus, during those periods, power system operators must ensure reliability and resilience across power generation, transmission, and distribution, while minimizing carbon emissions that can harm the air quality of the affected communities during wildfire events even more. This paper analyzes the impact of the 2020 wildfire season in the state of Washington, verifying the wind speed and solar irradiance data, and correlating these with the particulate matter 2.5 (PM 2.5) concentration and aerosol optical thickness (AOT) through a multi-variable regression model. The results show that PV production may be significantly reduced during the periods of high concentration of wildfire smoke and reduced wind speeds, thus highlighting the need for efficient and sustainable power system operations during wildfire events.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%