Presentatie op het Solar Event 2014 in Den Bosch.

1. Citizen Science:
het succes van de
Tel de Zon actie
Wilfried van Sark
Solar Event
7 oktober 2014
Den Bosch
Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development
Utrecht University, the Netherlands

2. 2/17
Content
•! Why
•! How
•! Results
•! Conclusion
•! Part of Solar Days 2014
•! Thanks:
Holland Solar, Stichting Monitoring Zonnestroom

3. 3/17
Citizen science
•! Citizen science (also known as crowd science,
crowd-sourced science, civic science, or
networked science) is scientific research conducted, in
whole or in part, by amateur or nonprofessional
scientists, often by crowdsourcing and crowdfunding.
Formally, citizen science has been defined as "the
systematic collection and analysis of data; development
of technology; testing of natural phenomena; and the
dissemination of these activities by researchers on a
primarily avocational basis”. Citizen science is
sometimes called "public participation in scientific
research.”

4. Why
•! PV market expansion requires reliable
information on a.o. the performance of PV
systems
•! PV performance data is not readily available
•! Privacy, legal, financial reasons
•! Luckily, private PV owners share monitoring
data over the Internet
4/17
•! However, the level of detail and measurement
accuracy may prohibit a proper analysis

5. 5/17
“Counting the Sun” - Tel de Zon
•! AIM: Raise awareness
•! among the general public
on the power of PV
•! among PV owners on the
power of monitoring
•! Dutch Solar Days
May 12-18, 2014
!!monitoring campaign
“Tel de Zon”
(Counting the Sun)
PIR, July 2014

6. 6/17
How
•! Recruit participants
•! Social media, flyers, national television (“Kassa”)

7. How
•! Instructions to participants: measure PV yield in week
May 12-18 (Sunday-Sunday)
•! Set-up website for participants to enter system data and
weekly yield
•! Set-up data analysis (Python)
•! Determine performance ratio
•! Calculate reference yield from system data and
irradiation data from nearest meteorologial stations
(KNMI: 31 in the country).
Plane of array conversion using Olmo model
•! Weekly yield: Yweek = Eweek/Pinstalled
•! Performance ratio: PR = Yweek/Yreference
7/17

8. How
•! System data:
•! Size, number of panels, orientation, tilt
•! Brand/type of panels and inverter
•! Monitoring device
•! Remarks: shadow?
•! All participants would receive feedback on their system
performance
8/17

9. Results
!!5000 systems, including systems from two
organizations (SolarCare, Zonnefabriek)
!!16.2 MWp
(2% of total Dutch capacity of 722 MWp)
!!average system size 3.5 kWp
!!spread over the whole country
9/17

10. 10/17
Results: the weather
•! Total weekly irradiation: 41.9 kWh/m2
•! Geographical variation ~30%
cloudy sunny

11. Results: the weather

12. Results: Energy yield
•! Total weekly yield: 531 MWh
•! Average weekly yield: 33.4 kWh/kWp (±25%)
•! Geographical variation correlates well with variation in
irradiation
weekly yield
average
33.4 kWh/kWp
12/17

13. Results: Energy yield

14. 14/17
Results: Performance Ratio
•! Average performance ratio 0.74±0.10
•! NO geographical variation
•! Some 10% of participants indicated some form of
shadow; analysis of these systems revealed a
performance ratio of 0.70±0.10.

15. Summary: “Counting the Sun”
•! Most systems are performing well (PR 0.74±0.10)
•! NO geographical variation in performance ratio
•! Some 10% of participants indicated some form of shade
(PR 0.70±0.10)
irradiation yield performance ratio
15/17

16. Conclusions
•! Campaign was a success
•! 5000 systems is a lot; automation necessity!
•! Feedback was given based on Performance ratio value in
classes:
0.5 < PR < 0.7 ; 0.7 < PR < 0.85 ; PR > 0.85
mediocre good excellent
16/17
•! Next year!?

17. THANKS
•! Saskia ‘t Hart, Minne de Jong, Peer de Rijk, Arthur de Vries
•! Panos Moraitis, Bhavya Kausika, Henrik van der Velde
•! Pierre Gerrissen (SolarCare), Hessel van den Berg
(Zonnefabriek)
•! Wido van Heemstra, Karin Keijzer
17/17
•! EU PVSEC 29:
Poster award!