Methods for location identification of renewable energy systems

Abstract

A method of identifying the location of a renewable energy system; providing a location-unknown renewable energy system having production data; filtering production data day by day for favorable weather conditions to provide filtered production data for each filtered day; identifying and saving the start of production, peak of production and end of production for each filtered day; calculating solar noon for each filtered day; calculating longitude bias for each filtered day according to an equation of time and the peak of production; calculating skew of production according to the start of production, peak of production and end of production for each filtered day; calculating longitude for one location-unknown renewable energy system according to the longitude bias and skew of production for each filtered day; setting longitude for location-unknown renewable energy system to become a location-known renewable energy system that becomes part of a set of location-known renewable energy systems.

We claim: 
     
         1 . A computer processor implemented method of identifying the location of a renewable energy system, said method comprising the steps of;
 providing a location-unknown renewable energy system having production data;   storing the production data in a computer processor;   filtering said production data day by day for favorable weather conditions by a computer processor to provide filtered production data for each filtered day;   identifying and saving the start of production, peak of production and end of production for each filtered day in a computer processor;   calculating solar noon for each filtered day by a computer processor;   calculating longitude bias for each filtered day by a computer processor according to an equation of time and the peak of production;   calculating skew of production by a computer processor according to the start of production, peak of production and end of production for each filtered day;   calculating longitude for one location-unknown renewable energy system by a computer processor according to the longitude bias and skew of production for each filtered day;   setting said longitude for said location-unknown renewable energy system to become a location-known renewable energy system that becomes part of a set of location-known renewable energy systems.   
     
     
         2 . A method as in  claim 1 , wherein said production data is simulated production data according to environmental conditions at said longitude and latitude pair and said step of correlating by said computer processor each location-unknown renewable energy system to at least one location-known renewable energy system is according to said location-known renewable energy systems longitude and latitude pair and said simulated production data. 
     
     
         3 . A method as in  claim 1 , wherein said environmental conditions at said longitude and latitude pair are estimated. 
     
     
         4 . A method as in  claim 1 , wherein said environmental conditions at said longitude and latitude pair are observed. 
     
     
         5 . A computer processor implemented method of identifying the location of a solar irradiance sensor, said method comprising the steps of;
 providing a location-unknown solar irradiance sensor having solar irradiance sensor data in a computer processor;   storing the solar irradiance sensor data in a computer processor;   filtering said solar irradiance sensor data day by day for favorable weather conditions by a computer processor to provide filtered solar irradiance sensor data for each filtered day;   identifying and saving the start of production, peak of production and end of production for each filtered day in a computer processor;   calculating solar noon for each filtered day by a computer processor;   calculating longitude bias for each filtered day by a computer processor according to an equation of time and the peak of production;   calculating skew of observation by a computer processor according to the start of production, peak of production and end of production for each filtered day;   calculating longitude for one location-unknown solar irradiance sensor by a computer processor according to the longitude bias and skew of observation for each filtered day;   setting said longitude for the location-unknown renewable energy system to become a location-known renewable energy system that becomes part of a set of location-known renewable energy systems.   
     
     
         6 . A computer processor implemented method of identifying the location of a renewable energy system as in  claim 5 , wherein said solar irradiance sensor data is simulated solar irradiance sensor data according to environmental conditions at said longitude and latitude pair and said step of correlating by said computer processor each location-unknown environmental sensor to at least one location-known environmental sensor is according to said location-known environmental sensors longitude and latitude pair and said simulated solar irradiance sensor data. 
     
     
         7 . A method as in  claim 5 , wherein said environmental conditions at said longitude and latitude pair are estimated. 
     
     
         8 . A method as in  claim 5 , wherein said environmental conditions at said longitude and latitude pair are observed.