Reduction of solar photovoltaic resources due to air pollution in China

Abstract

Solar photovoltaic (PV) electricity generation is expanding rapidly in China, with total capacity projected to be 400 GW by 2030. However, severe aerosol pollution over China reduces solar radiation reaching the surface. We estimate the aerosol impact on solar PV electricity generation at the provincial and regional grid levels in China. Our approach is to examine the 12-year (2003-2014) average reduction in point-of-array irradiance (POAI) caused by aerosols in the atmosphere. We apply satellite-derived surface irradiance data from the NASA Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) with a PV performance model (PVLIB-Python) to calculate the impact of aerosols and clouds on POAI. Our findings reveal that aerosols over northern and eastern China, the most polluted regions, reduce annual average POAI by up to 1.5 kWh/m per day relative to pollution-free conditions, a decrease of up to 35%. Annual average reductions of POAI over both northern and eastern China are about 20-25%. We also evaluate the seasonal variability of the impact and find that aerosols in this region are as important as clouds in winter. Furthermore, we find that aerosols decrease electricity output of tracking PV systems more than those with fixed arrays: over eastern China, POAI is reduced by 21% for fixed systems at optimal angle and 34% for two-axis tracking systems. We conclude that PV system performance in northern and eastern China will benefit from improvements in air quality and will facilitate that improvement by providing emission-free electricity.

Daily Global Solar Radiation in China Estimated From High‐Density Meteorological Observations: A Random Forest Model Framework

“…On the one hand, this has significantly modulated the change in surface solar radiation (Che et al, 2005;Guo et al, 2018;Wang et al, 2012Wang et al, , 2013Wang & Wild, 2016;Zheng et al, 2018;He & Wang, 2020;Yang et al, 2020), while on the other hand, it has led to solar radiation becoming one of the fastest-growing and important sources of clean and renewable energy. Therefore, solar radiation is a topic that has attracted broad and increasing attention in China (Che et al, 2005;Sun et al, 2016;Li et al, 2017;Song et al, 2019;Tang et al, 2016Tang et al, , 2018Liu et al, 2019;He & Wang et al, © 2020 The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.…”

“…To obtain a longer and more detailed data set of DGSR in China, previous studies have made great efforts to estimate DGSR from surface meteorological observations using various methods, such as the traditional empirical formula and artificial neural network methods (Jiang et al, 2009a;Huang et al, 2011;Qin et al, 2011;Chen et al, 2013;Li et al, 2013;Tang et al, 2010Tang et al, , 2013Tang et al, , 2016Sun et al, 2016;Li et al, 2017). Using these methods, however, the importance of input variables for estimating DGSR could not be identified objectively and automatically.…”

Climate, air quality and human health benefits of various solar photovoltaic deployment scenarios in China in 2030

“…For the distribution within each province and across China we assume a proportional increase from 2015 installed capacity for both distributed and utility-scale PV to achieve a total of 400 GW PV in 2030 (figure 1). Capacity factors for both types of PV for each province are calculated using satellite-derived surface irradiance data and the PVLIB-Python model (see section 2 of the online supplementary information for details of calculating the capacity factors, available at stacks.iop.org/ERL/13/ 064002/mmedia) [30]. We assume utility-scale PV plants are equipped with one-axis tracking PV arrays facing south, while distributed PV systems have panels with fixed angles determined by latitude to maximize incident radiation.…”

“…The seasonal variation of PM 2.5 mitigation shows that there are more significant reductions in April and October in the north, and in July in the south, especially along the Yangtze River and in the Pearl River Delta (PRD, see figure S8). Variations in PV electricity generation are determined by variations in incoming solar radiation, cloud cover and aerosol optical depth [30]. PV generation in most northern provinces is higher in April and October than in July and in southern provinces is highest in July (figure S9).…”

ϵ‐Polylysine‐Capped Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles as Carrier of the C9h Peptide to Induce Apoptosis in Cancer Cells

“…Recently, several phosphatases have become attractive targets for the treatment of a variety of diseases, including cancers . However, the only clinical drugs targeting phosphatases are the immunosuppressive cyclosporine A and FK506, which inhibit serine/threonine phosphatase 2B (calcineurin) and NFAT activation . Nevertheless, long‐term usage of these drugs can lead to undesirable side effects …”