Estimation of Global Horizontal Irradiance (GHI) From Goes-16 Data for Hydro-Québec Operations in an Energy Transition Context

In the context of climate change, it is important to take concrete action in terms of energy transition, and it is with this in mind that Hydro-Québec has developed technological solutions for observing and forecasting global horizontal irradiance (GHI) using GOES satellite data and semi-empirical and deep learning methods. In particular, the solutions developed will meet the company's needs in terms of solar production and demand forecasting (load forecasting), to better balance the different sources of production, as well as better optimize the reduction of demand linked to passive heating. Initial results are encouraging and show definite potential for near-real-time characterization of the solar resource, with RMSEs between 80 and 130 W/m
²
depending on climate type (arid vs. continental) and the method adopted (AI vs. semi-empirical algorithm).