Comparison of typical meteorological year and on-site measurements for solar PV site selection

The standard approach when simulating photovoltaic output is to employ Typical Meteorological Year (TMY) data sets. This paper uses statistical analyses to investigate several TMYs. The objectives are: (1) to ascertain which TMY generation method most accurately reproduces solar conditions in the UK; (2) to discover the minimum time resolution at which TMYs delver reliable results; and (3) to determine if there are any circumstances in which TMYs can replace long-term time series.