Solar energy resource availability under extreme and historical wildfire smoke conditions

Abstract

By 2050, the U.S. plans to increase solar energy from 3% to 45% of the nation’s electricity generation. Quantifying wildfire smoke’s impact on solar photovoltaic (PV) generation is essential to meet this goal, especially given previous studies documenting sizable PV output losses due to smoke. We quantify smoke-driven changes in baseline solar resource availability (i.e., amount of direct normal (DNI) and global horizontal (GHI) irradiance) at different spatial and temporal scales using radiative transfer model output and satellite-based smoke, aerosol, and cloud observations. State, regional, and national results show that DNI and GHI decrease as smoke frequency increases. DNI is more sensitive to smoke with sizable losses persisting downwind of fires. While large reductions in GHI–the main PV resource–are possible close to fires, mean GHI declines minimally (<5%) due to transported smoke. GHI remains a relatively stable resource across most of CONUS even in extreme fire seasons.