Investigation of Short-Term Intermittency in Solar Irradiance and Its Impacts on PV Converter Systems

Increased installation of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems has drawn concerns of managing and mitigating the fast and unpredictable variations in solar power generation. This paper presents a detailed analysis of short-term (seconds level, transients) solar intermittency and its implications on solar PV array and DC/DC power converters. The impacts of the short term intermittency to the output power variations have also been studied considering the filtering components of the converter. In addition, the paper addresses the challenges about the identification of the short-term solar intermittency by utilising a moving window method. Furthermore, simulation and data analysis results provide insights of overcoming short-term solar uncertainty for PV system design and technical requirements of suitable power converters.