How do Clouds Affect Solar Panels?

One of the biggest questions people have when they are considering solar power is, how do clouds affect solar panels?

How do clouds affect solar panels?

For a definitive answer, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (“NREL”) recently published a study after extensive research on the effect of cloud cover on solar power installations. NREL is a national laboratory that is part of the U.S. Department of Energy‘s Office of Science and is the only federal laboratory fully vested in the research, development, commercialization and deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies.

The NREL’s study on how clouds affect solar panels is based on data collected over a year on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. The purpose of its research is to determine where solar energy production may be compromised in a utility scale photovoltaic (PV system.

Although clouds may affect solar panels in a minimal way, solar power is still one of the cleanest, greenest forms of renewable energy. The cost of solar energy has continued to fall over recent years, as well. Yet, the reality is that cloud cover can reduce the efficiency of solar panels because their output reacts rapidly to changes in the intensity of sunlight.

Yet, solar technology continues to advance allowing greater amounts of energy to be collected from solar panels, even when its cloudy. In fact, solar planners may be able to soon analyze the characteristics of cloud shadows, and reliably model, or predict output from, their individual systems over time.

For more information on the impact of clouds on solar panels, take a look at NREL’s Measurement and Instrumentation Data Center (MIDC) website.

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