Solar Energy 198 (2020) 68–80

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Solar Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/solener

Global horizontal irradiance forecast for Finland based on geostationary T

weather satellite data
Viivi Kallio-Myers , Aku Riihelä, Panu Lahtinen, Anders Lindfors
⁎

Finnish Meteorological Institute, Erik Palménin aukio 1, FI-00560 Helsinki, Finland

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Global horizontal irradiance (GHI) estimates and forecasts are necessary for the efficient use of a naturally
Geostationary satellite fluctuating energy source like solar energy. However, few forecasting methods exist for high latitudes. In this
Satellite-derived irradiance study we present the development and validation of a satellite-based GHI forecast for southern Finland, called
Short-term forecasting Solis-Heliosat. The forecast is formed by combining information from the clear sky (CS) model Pvlib Solis with
High latitudes
consecutive geostationary weather satellite imagery, using the Heliosat method. Forecasts are produced up to 4 h
with a 15-min temporal resolution. The CS model, the satellite-based all-sky estimate, and the GHI forecast have
been compared and validated against other methods and in situ GHI measurements. An additional comparison
was made for two datasets representing a changing cloud environment.
The CS model estimates had an average rMBE (relative Mean Bias Error) of −6% to 1% and a rRMSE (relative
Root Mean Square Error) of 6–10%. For the all-sky estimates the rMBE was −4% to −2%, and rRMSE 2–33%.
With increasing forecast time the Solis-Heliosat rMBE descends to −9% and rRMSE reaches 50% at 4 h. Solis-
Heliosat performs better than the persistence forecasts in most cases, particularly in a changing cloud en-
vironment.
Our study indicates the use of satellite-based forecasts as a viable tool for forecasting GHI for the solar energy
industry also in the high latitudes. In high latitudes geostationary satellite-based methods are at their limit;
however, the information they can provide will enable efficient solar energy production.

1. Introduction
As renewable energy solutions are becoming more widespread, the
demand for solar energy is growing also in Finland. With the long
daylight hours in the summer and little cloudiness in the coasts, the
solar resource in southern Finland is higher than often presumed, and
comparable to the resource of northern mainland Europe (Lindfors
et al., 2014). However, the integration of solar energy into the power
grid is challenging, due to the inherent variability of global horizontal
irradiance (GHI). The sudden changes in GHI and thus in the photo-
voltaic (PV) energy produce may lead to instability or curtailment (Bird
et al., 2014). A common solution to managing the variable energy
produce is using GHI forecasts to predict the coming changes (Inman
et al., 2013).
PV energy production is primarily dependent on the amount of GHI
incident on the PV plane. Here we study the global horizontal irra-
diance, which is hereafter referred to as GHI or irradiance. GHI is af-
fected by the atmospheric composition, including aerosols, water
vapour and ozone, but particularly in short scale the largest effect is due
to clouds.
Various methods have been developed for GHI forecasting, in-
cluding statistical, physical, and hybrid methods (for an extensive re-
view, see e.g. Antonanzas et al., 2016; Yang et al., 2018). The selection
of a specific method is dependent on the required forecast time: for the
very near forecast time of up to one hour, sky imagers and auto-re-
gressive methods have shown good performance, whilst for the times
scales of up to 6 h, methods using imagery from the instruments on
board weather satellites perform well. Beyond the time scale of several
hours, dissipation and formation begin to determine the development of
clouds, and cloud tracking methods are no longer comparable in ac-
curacy to numerical weather prediction (NWP) systems. NWP systems
have better accuracy for forecasts with a forecast time of several hours
to days (Antonanzas et al., 2016; Kühnert et al., 2013). The perfor-
mance of NWP systems in solar irradiance forecasting has also been
studied for Northern Europe (Landelius et al., 2018).
Satellite-based methods used to retrieve GHI often use a clear sky

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: viivi.kallio-myers@fmi.fi (V. Kallio-Myers), aku.riihela@fmi.fi (A. Riihelä), panu.lahtinen@fmi.fi (P. Lahtinen),
anders.lindfors@fmi.fi (A. Lindfors).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2020.01.008
Received 12 April 2019; Received in revised form 11 July 2019; Accepted 5 January 2020
Available online 24 January 2020
0038-092X/ © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of International Solar Energy Society. This is an open access article under the CC BY
license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY/4.0/).
V. Kallio-Myers, et al. Solar Energy 198 (2020) 68–80

(CS) estimate calculated with a CS model (Ruiz-Arias and Gueymard,
2018) combined with the impact of clouds retrieved from weather sa-
tellite imagery with the Heliosat method (Cano et al., 1986, Rigollier
et al., 2004). Many of these methods have been validated for Europe
(e.g. Arbizu-Barrena et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2019), however, few
satellite-based methods are available or have been validated in the high
latitudes. Particularly validations of methods with a high temporal re-
solution (under 1 h) have been limited to lower latitudes. In northern
areas the high satellite zenith angle of the geostationary weather sa-
tellites makes estimating GHI particularly challenging. Methods com-
bining satellite data with other, for instance NWP or ground GHI
measurement input (e.g. Nonnenmacher and Coimbra, 2014; Miller
et al., 2018), have also been validated mainly for more southern areas.
To bring additional value to the energy production process, GHI
forecasts must be accurate, and forecasts specifically developed for the
high latitudes are needed. Satellite-based methods have high coverage
and good performance in nowcasting with forecast horizons of 0–6 h,
but their performance in the high latitudes has not been quantified. To
demonstrate the potential of satellite-based forecasts in the high lati-
tudes, we have developed a method based on a CS model selected
specifically for Finland, and measurements from the Spinning Enhanced
Visible and InfraRed Imager (SEVIRI) imager on board the geosta-
tionary Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) weather satellite. A pre-
liminary CS comparison has been published by Kallio and Riihelä
(2018; proc. IGARSS); in this study we revise the analysis and error
metrics used in the comparison. The forecasting method, as well as all
the components of the method, have been validated in southern Fin-
land.
This paper is sectioned as follows: Section 2 introduces the CS
models, the all-sky comparison reference method, and the satellite and
observation data used in the forecast and the comparisons. Section 3
explains the setup and comparison process for the three components of
the GHI forecast method: the CS component, the Solis-Heliosat all-sky
estimate, and the GHI forecast. Section 4 presents the results of the CS
and the all-sky estimate comparisons and the forecast validation. Fi-
nally Sections 5 and 6 complete the paper with the discussion and
conclusions.
CS model is based on a parameterisation of Linke Turbidity (Ineichen
and Perez, 2002), and only requires time and geolocation information
from the user. In the default configuration, the turbidity for a specific
site is retrieved from a global climatology by Ineichen and Perez
(2002). The clear-sky irradiance component of the model is based on a
corrected version of the formula by Kasten (1983), where the impact of
Rayleigh and aerosol scattering on the CS irradiance is accounted for by
empirically derived relationships dependent on the observation site
mean sea level elevation.
Solis by Pvlib-python is a spectrally resolved physical CS model. A
best fit is made to a range of RTM calculations, which enable analytical
equations to be used for the model parameters and therefore the cal-
culation of GHI (Ineichen, 2008). AOD, WV and Extra-terrestrial Direct
Normal Irradiance (EDNI) can be set as default or given as additional
input.
2.2. Satellite data
The cloud information used in the GHI estimate is taken from sa-
tellite imagery from the SEVIRI instrument on-board the geostationary
MSG weather satellite Meteosat-11 at 0° longitude. SEVIRI observes the
earth in 12 spectral channels, of which the visible light channels VIS006
and VIS008 are used in this study. The channels have a 3 km resolution
at nadir. At high latitudes, the pixel size is stretched due to earth cur-
vature, leading to higher pixel size (~8 km over Southern Finland, e.g.
Kwiatkowska et al., 2016). The satellite zenith angle of SEVIRI for
southern Finland varies between 70° and 75°, as shown in Fig. 1. Images

2. Data

2.1. Clear sky models

Four CS models of GHI were used in the comparison: McClear

(Lefèvre et al., 2013), SPECMAGIC (Mueller et al., 2012), Pvlib In-
eichen (Ineichen and Perez, 2002) and Pvlib Simplified Solis (Ineichen,
2008). For Pvlib Simplified Solis (Solis hereafter), four variations with
atmospheric parameters as given input were made in addition to the
default configuration.
McClear is a physical CS model produced as part of the Copernicus
Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), based on radiative transfer
parameterisation with CS conditions. McClear has been made to imitate
the Radiative Transfer Model (RTM) libRadtran (Mayer and Kylling,
2005), with libRadtran-based Look Up Tables (LUT) providing faster
processing. McClear exploits Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD), Water Va-
pour (WV), and ozone (O3) information from the MACC (Monitoring
Atmosphere Composition and Climate) (Inness et al., 2013) reanalysis
data. McClear CS GHI estimates are available on the CAMS McClear
service (Schroedter-Homscheid et al., 2018).
SPECMAGIC is a physical model for spectrally resolved GHI. To
include the effect of aerosols, SPECMAGIC uses LUTs calculated with
libRadtran. The independent effects of WV, O3 and surface properties
are then added to form the spectrally resolved clear-sky irradiance.
SPECMAGIC uses MACC reanalysis data for AOD, whilst WV properties Fig. 1. GHI measurement site locations in Finland (red dots) and the coverage
are taken from the ERA-Interim reanalysis (Dee and Uppala, 2009). of the SEVIRI imager with the 70° and 75° satellite zenith angles (red lines). (For
Pvlib-python (Holmgren et al., 2018) is a community based tool interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is
made to support PV energy performance estimates. The Pvlib Ineichen referred to the web version of this article.)

69
V. Kallio-Myers, et al. Solar Energy 198 (2020) 68–80

are available at a 15 min temporal resolution. in the summer period, whilst in Jyväskylä the large quantity of sur-
rounding lakes and the largest satellite zenith angle of the used eva-
2.3. Heliosat-4 all-sky estimates luation sites bring further challenge and interest.

For the all-sky comparison we used Heliosat-4 (Qu et al., 2017) all-
2.5. Cloud measurements
sky estimates from the CAMS Radiation Service (Schroedter-Homscheid
et al., 2018). Heliosat-4 is a physical method to estimate irradiance,
For the detection of CS events in the CS comparison, we have used
consisting of two models based on LUTs: McClear to calculate CS irra-
automatic cloud measurements from each site. The cloud measurements
diance, and McCloud for calculating the cloud impact. The LUTs for
in Kumpula, Jokioinen and Jyväskylä were made with a Vaisala CL31
both models are based on the libRadtran RTM. The main inputs to
Ceilometer, and in Helsinki-Vantaa and Parainen Utö with a Vaisala
Heliosat-4, aerosol properties, water vapour and ozone, are provided by
CT25K Laser Ceilometer. Both ceilometers have a vertical measurement
CAMS every 3 h. The cloud information is based on SEVIRI imagery.
range of 0–7.5 km (Vaisala, 1999). Measurements are available every
In McCloud cloud properties (optical thickness, cloud type and
10 min.
cloud coverage) are retrieved through the AVHRR Processing scheme
Over cLouds, Land and Ocean (APOLLO), adapted to process SEVIRI
imagery at a 15 min temporal resolution. 2.6. AERONET measurements

2.4. Reference GHI measurements In order to verify the atmospheric conditions used for the CS irra-
diance evaluation, we have made an additional comparison between in
In situ GHI measurements from five Finnish Meteorological Institute situ measured AOD and WV and their counterpart reanalysis (MACC
(FMI) GHI measurement sites are used as a reference for the validations. and ERA-Interim) and default values in the Solis model, using AErosol
All of the sites are located in southern Finland within the viable mea- RObotic NETwork (AERONET) AOD and precipitable water measure-
suring area of the SEVIRI satellite imager. The latitude, longitude and ments from Kumpula. The measurements are daily averages with level 2
climatological type of the site are shown in Table 1. The locations are quality control, including pre- and post-field calibration as well as cloud
further illustrated in Fig. 1 along with the satellite zenith angle of SE- screening. AERONET AOD and precipitable water have been calculated
VIRI. from sun photometer measurements (Aaltonen et al., 2012).
The GHI data from the five measurement sites are available for the The typical AOD over southern Finland is low. The average AOD500
whole validation period, from May 1st to August 31st 2016, at 1 min for the period 2006 to 2010 has been found by Aaltonen et al. (2012) to
temporal resolution. The measurements are made with ventilated Kipp be around 0.07 in rural sites, including Jokioinen, and approximately
and Zonen CM11 pyranometers, which have been calibrated according 0.1 at urban sites, including Helsinki.
to WMO recommendations and shown to agree with similar sensors in
intercalibration experiments (Carlund, 2013). The measurements have
been used successfully as references when evaluating the quality of GHI 3. Methods
estimates in satellite-based datasets and atmospheric reanalyses
(Riihelä et al., 2015; Urraca et al., 2018). The data is automatically In this section we present the error metrics used in the comparisons,
quality controlled according to Baseline Surface Radiation Network and the setup and comparisons for the three components of the GHI
(BSRN) standards (McArthur, 2005), slightly adapted for the prevailing forecasting method: the CS model estimate, the satellite-based all-sky
conditions. Manual checks are additionally made for flagged data. The estimate, and the GHI forecast.
expected GHI measurement uncertainty range for these data is on the All the evaluations were made for the five FMI GHI measurement
order of 2–5% (Wang et al., 2012). site locations, comparing the in situ GHI measurement and the value
The sites represent various climatological environments. Parainen from the nearest pixel of the SEVIRI image. We evaluated a four month
Utö is located on a small marine island in the periphery of the Finnish period of 1st of May 2016 to 31st of August 2016, beyond which the
southwestern archipelago. In comparison to the other sites, Parainen solar elevation is often low. In the spring time (mainly April) there are
Utö represents marine conditions with a high occurrence of CS situa- also significant changes in the surface albedo due to snow cover and
tions during summer. Kumpula site is within the coastal city of Helsinki, foliage, making irradiance retrievals based on the Heliosat method
with the coastline at an approximate distance of 5 km. Helsinki-Vantaa unreliable. We used a 15 min temporal resolution, around the SEVIRI
site is located at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport, 17 km from the coast. image retrieval times of 00, 15, 30 and 45 min past the hour.
Despite being coastal sites only at an 10 km distance from each other, For the reference data, 1 min measurements were averaged over
Kumpula and Helsinki-Vantaa have different climatic conditions; in 15 min, centred on the comparison times. Only averages containing all
Kumpula the proximity of the sea is more noticeable in the site’s cli- 15 measurements were used, to reduce the effect of short term fluc-
matology, for instance in the cloud conditions. Jokioinen and Jyväskylä tuations and the discrepancy between a point in situ measurement and
are inland sites. Both sites are characterised by frequent cumulus clouds a SEVIRI measurement pixel of several square kilometres (Zelenka
et al., 1999). The averaging also lessens the effect of nearby cloudiness,
Table 1 which through cloud reflections may produce a GHI measurement
Reference GHI measurement site locations, climatological environment types, above the CS value. All data in all of the comparisons were limited to
and the average site GHI for the validation period 1.5–31.8.2016. The average include only values where the solar zenith angle was 80° or below.
GHI is calculated from the dataset including only times where the solar zenith
angle is 80° or below.
3.1. Error metrics
Site Latitude Longitude East Climatology Average GHI
North (°) (°) (W/m2)
The error metrics used in evaluating GHI forecasts vary, and despite
Parainen Utö 59.78 21.37 Marine 409.23 attempts to create uniform procedures (e.g. Lorenz et al., 2009), re-
Kumpula 60.20 24.96 Coastal 364.69 searchers use a range of metrics. This study uses the error metrics Mean
Helsinki-Vantaa 60.33 24.96 Coastal 354.07
Bias Error (MBE) and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), and their re-
Jokioinen 60.81 23.50 Inland 339.34
Jyväskylä 62.40 25.67 Inland 316.64 lative counterparts (rMBE and rRMSE). Lorenz et al. (2009) defines
MBE and RMSE as the following:

70
V. Kallio-Myers, et al.
1
N
MBE = (GHIEST , i GHIOBS, i ),
N i=1 (1)
N McClear, two consecutive 15 min averages were combined to produce a
1
RMSE = (GHIEST , i GHIOBS, i ) 2 ,
N i=1 (2)
where GHIEST and GHIOBS are the estimated and observed GHI. To
calculate the relative errors rMBE and rRMSE, the errors were nor-
malised by dividing the error by the site mean GHI over the whole time
period, including all the moments with a solar zenith angle of 80° or
below (Hoff et al., 2013).
In addition to the metrics defined above, a common benchmark in
forecasting is persistence forecasts (Lorenz et al., 2009). The general
concept of a persistence forecast is assuming the initial situation to
remain constant. A persistence forecast is not necessarily a point of
comparison, but a benchmark used to justify the use of a complex
forecasting method instead of more simple assumptions. We use fore-
cast skill, as well as MBE and RMSE, to evaluate the GHI forecast per-
formance (Marquez and Coimbra, 2013; Yang et al., 2018):
RMSEEST
FS = 1 ,
RMSEREF
where RMSEEST refers to the RMSE of the evaluated method, and
RMSEREF to the reference method, here the persistence.
In solar forecasting, where the diurnal variation is large and easily
predicted, a ‘smart’ persistence serves better than simply assuming the
irradiance to remain constant. A smart persistence takes into con-
sideration the diurnal cycle, i.e. solar geometry, and instead holds the
effect of clouds constant (Lorenz et al., 2009). In this study we used two
persistence methods, one using satellite data and one using observa-
tions for the cloud impact (see 3.4.3).
3.2. Clear-sky model configurations and comparison
3.2.1. Clear-sky model configurations
McClear estimates for the comparison were retrieved from the
CAMS McClear Service, whilst SPECMAGIC and Pvlib Ineichen were
run as default configurations. We have used the Pvlib-python version
0.6.0 (DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1420548).
Solis was run with five configurations:
1. Default configuration with the default values: EDNI of 1364 W/m2,
700 nm AOD of 0.1 (dimensionless) and precipitable water of
1.0 cm.
2. AOD based on the MACC 550 nm AOD. The 550 nm AOD was
converted to represent the 700 nm AOD with the Ångström coeffi-
cient with a conversion method according to Tan et al. (2015).
3. Precipitable water based on the WV values from ERA Interim.
4. AOD and precipitable water as in 2. and 3.
5. EDNI calculated for each time based on Pvlib.
Default values (see configuration 1.) were in place when no alter-
native value was given. Additionally, to further study the effect of using
either in situ measured AOD and WV or the reanalysis values on the CS
estimates of Solis, three configurations using AERONET measurements
were run for Kumpula site. These include:
1. Daily averages of AERONET 695 nm AOD
2. Daily averages of AERONET precipitable water
3. Both 6. and 7. as given input.
3.2.2. The comparison dataset for the clear-sky estimate
For SPECMAGIC, Pvlib Ineichen and Pvlib Solis, estimates from the
comparison times (00, 15, 30, 45 min past the hour) were used. The
estimates are essentially instantaneous, albeit calculated using
71
Solar Energy 198 (2020) 68–80
reanalysis data for the atmospheric parameters. For McClear, 15 min
averages were available at the time of the study, starting at the com-
parison times (00–15, 15–30, etc.). To attain a comparable estimate for
30 min average around the comparison times.
Two thresholds were used to include only CS situations in the CS
estimate comparison. In order to avoid including situations with frac-
tional or varying cloudiness, only times corresponding to a full hour of
0 oktas (0/8) cloudiness measurements were included, i.e. the presence
of one or more times with measured 1–8 oktas (1/8–8/8) cloudiness
lead to discarding the whole hour. The second threshold of satellite-
based Cloud Albedo (CAL) below 0.01 and above −0.01, was used to
ensure a larger area of cloud free sky than may be determined with
ceilometer measurements only.
3.3. Solis-Heliosat all-sky GHI estimate calculation and comparison
3.3.1. Calculation of the Solis-Heliosat all-sky GHI estimate
The all-sky GHI estimate is formed by combining the model-based
CS estimate with the cloud impact retrieved from SEVIRI imagery. The
effect of clouds are defined with the commonly used, well established
Heliosat method (Cano et al., 1986, Rigollier et al., 2004), which uses
satellite-based radiances to calculate CAL. Heliosat method defines CAL
as follows:
BB CS
CAL = ,
MAX CS (3)
where ρBB is the observed broad band radiance at the time of the esti-
mate, ρMAX is the monthly maximum radiance for the month in question
and ρCS is the monthly CS radiance. Our study uses the calibrated ra-
diances from the SEVIRI measurements, which first go through a con-
version process. The conversion process transforms the spectral ra-
diance to radiance over all wavelengths, normalises the solar zenith
angle to 0°, and accounts for the earth-sun distance. After the conver-
sion the radiances from the VIS006 and VIS008 channels, ρVIS006 and
ρVIS008, are combined to form the broad band radiance ρBB according to
the following equation by (Cros et al., 2006):
BB = 1.0605·(4.49459· VIS 006 + 2.36764· VIS 008 ) + 0.5909. (4)
To find the most representative values, ρMAX and ρCS undergo an
averaging process. Following Amillo et al. (2014), we define ρMAX as the
95th percentile of all 13:00 UTC radiances of one month over a region
in the SEVIRI disc with very high occurrence of bright convective
clouds. For MSG satellite-based 0° longitude this region lies between
longitude −15° and 0° and latitude −58° and −48°. The percentile is
calculated for all months separately. To retrieve ρCS we have used an
iterative cycle, where first all values for one month are collected for all
time slots. The average for these values is calculated, after which any
value in the group larger than the average by over ε, are removed. The
average is then recalculated, and the values exceeding average by ε are
again removed. This iteration is continued until no value exceeds the
average by over the value of ε. The value of ε has been set to 0.035ρMAX,
as in Amillo et al. (2014).
The estimated GHI is calculated using the clear sky index (CSI),
which describes the effect of clouds compared to the CS GHI (e.g.
Rigollier et al., 2004):
GHIEST = GHICS ·CSI , (5)
where GHICS is the modelled CS irradiance. Therefore, once the GHICS is
available and the CSI is derived from satellite imagery, the all-sky GHI
estimate may be obtained. In the satellite data processing, the CSI is
related to the CAL via (Mueller et al., 2012):
V. Kallio-Myers, et al. Solar Energy 198 (2020) 68–80

1.2, CAL 0.2

1 CAL , 0.2 < CAL 0.8
CSI =
1.1661 1.781·CAL + 0.73·CAL2, 0.8 < CAL 1.05
0.09, 1.05 < CAL
(6)

3.3.2. The dataset for the all-sky GHI estimate comparison

We calculated the all-sky GHI estimate using Pvlib Solis with default
configuration, because of its good practical aspects and good perfor-
mance based on the CS estimate comparison. For Heliosat-4, we used
version 3.2 and 1 min estimates were averaged over 15 min centred
around the comparison times. The all-sky GHI estimate comparison
includes all situations, both cloudy and clear.

3.4. GHI forecast method setup and evaluation

3.4.1. Calculation of the near-term GHI forecast

The forecast component combines an extrapolation of the cloud
field and a CS estimate from the forecast time. The cloud field move-
ment is retrieved from two consecutive CAL maps, based on SEVIRI
images from the start time of the forecast (0 h) and 15 min before the
start time. We used the Farnebäck (2003) optical flow method to cal-
culate the cloud movement field between the two maps. The cloud
movement field is recursively applied to generate the forecasted CAL
maps at the 15 min temporal resolution. The GHI forecast is then made
with the same method as the all-sky estimate, only using the forecasted
CAL map and the modelled CS estimate from the forecasted time. The
forecast was calculated for up to 4 h.
The method provides a cloud movement field for the cloudy pixels
in the satellite image. In a single map pixel the value of the previous
map remains, unless a new value is set due to the cloud movement. As
cloud movement is the basis for the movement field, there is no
movement in the CS areas.
3.4.2. GHI forecast dataset
In the forecast evaluation the solar zenith angle limit was extended
to include the whole forecasts whose starting point is cut by the lim-
itation, i.e. if the zenith angle at the time of the 0 h estimate is above
80°, the whole forecast starting at that time was removed. As the
forecast relies on the SEVIRI measurement from the starting time, the
low quality of the initial estimate would impact the whole forecast. We
both evaluated the GHI forecast against the reference data, and com-
pared it to two persistence forecasts.
In addition to evaluating the whole forecast dataset, two datasets
representing change in the cloudiness within the forecast were studied
separately: one with a cloudy start point and less cloudy situations in a
forecasted time, and one with a clear or almost clear start point, and
cloudy situations in the forecast. These datasets were compared sepa-
rately to highlight the differences of the methods in situations with
changing versus static cloud conditions. The limits we used were a CSI
of below 0.3 for a cloudy case, and above 0.8 for a clear case. The CSI
here is calculated using Eq. (5) with GHIOBS instead of GHIEST. The
forecast start point was to fill one of the requirements, and any point in
the forecast after the start was to fill the opposite requirement, to en-
sure a change within the forecast.
3.4.3. Evaluation of the forecasted GHI against persistence forecasts
For the persistence forecasts the effect of clouds and the CS estimate
are combined in the same way as in the satellite estimate (see Section
3.3.1). However, for the persistence forecasts the CSI used in Eq. (5) is
calculated based on the 0 h conditions, and is then held constant
throughout the forecast. The modelled CS estimate is taken for the
specific forecasted time.
This study uses two persistence forecasts with a different source for
the CSI: one based on the site observed irradiance (hereafter Persistence
Fig. 2. CS model rMBE and rRMSE for the sites separately and averaged over all
sites. The Pvlib input (Aerosol Optical Depth: AOD, Water Vapour: WV, Extra-
terrestrial Direct Normal Irradiance: EDNI) describe the input given instead of
Pvlib default values. For all other parameters default values were used.
Obs), and one based on the satellite-estimate (hereafter Persistence
Sat). The CSI for Persistence Obs is calculated with Eq. (5), using
GHIOBS instead of GHIEST, whilst for Persistence Sat the CSI is calculated
as in the all-sky estimate. The Persistence Obs is closer to the usual
benchmarking procedure. Persistence Sat, on the other hand, differs
from the studied forecast method only by the cloud forecast. Persistence
Sat is therefore used mainly to estimate the performance of the method
used for cloud movement.
4. Results
4.1. Clear sky model comparison
The rMBE and rRMSE metrics for the CS model comparison are
shown in Fig. 2. Both the site-specific metrics as well as the all-sites
average are presented.
All of the CS models perform relatively well, with the site-averaged
rMBE between −6.19% and 0.64%, and rRMSE between 6.43% and
10.20%. McClear, Pvlib Ineichen and Pvlib Solis with default input have
small rMBE, with values mostly between −1% and 1% excluding
Jokioinen, and rRMSE around or below 8%, whilst almost all variations
of Pvlib Solis with given variable inputs have larger negative rMBE and
higher rRMSE than the default configuration. SPECMAGIC shows more
variance between the sites for rMBE, and has a rRMSE comparable to
Pvlib Solis with given variable inputs.
The errors vary somewhat between the sites, but the relative model
performance is mostly consistent. The largest differences are between
the two inland sites Jokioinen and Jyväskylä and the three marine and
coastal sites. Kumpula has a smaller rRMSE than the other sites, but this
may be partly due to the remaining dataset including light residual
cloudiness and/or haze in some of the sites and not others.
As in situ measurements of AOD and WV were available at Kumpula
during our evaluation period, an additional in-depth study on the de-
pendence of Pvlib Solis performance on these inputs was made. A CS
model comparison for Kumpula using the in situ observed AOD and WV
as input is shown in Annex in Fig. A1. In this case, Pvlib Solis was found
to perform best with observed AOD and WV, and EDNI calculated by
Pvlib as input. Using the in situ observed WV as a variable input and

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default values for other parameters, and using the default configuration satellite-based method with a high temporal frequency of 15 min,
produced slightly higher errors. particularly with the given challenges of the higher latitudes.
The default value of AOD used in the Solis model (0.1) was found to To better study the situations in the all-sky estimate, scatter plots of
be higher than the observed (0.06), and smaller than the MACC re- estimated and observed irradiance over all sites is shown in Fig. 3 for
analysis value (0.12). Using the observed AOD as a variable input and both methods. The figure includes linear regressions fitted to the data,
default values for other parameters leads to an overestimation of irra- as well as 1:1 lines. For Heliosat-4 the linear regression line is closer to
diance. The Solis default WV (1.0 cm) was lower than the observed 1 (Heliosat-4 slope: 1.029, Solis-Heliosat slope: 0.936), which is in line
(1.66), and the ERA-Interim reanalysis WV was the highest (1.97). The with the method’s lower rMBE. However, the number of outliers is
use of any of these WV options as the only variable input lead to un- somewhat larger for Heliosat-4 (Heliosat-4 std error: 0.003, Solis-He-
derestimation, with the use of the observed WV leading to the smallest liosat std error: 0.002), as is also seen in the rRMSE. The result supports
error. As the EDNI is lower in summer than in winter, the default yearly the generally good performance of both methods seen through the MBE
average value is higher than the given input calculated by Pvlib. The and RMSE, and shows the Solis-Heliosat estimate to be sufficient for use
combination of observed AOD and WV with Pvlib-calculated EDNI as the initial state of the irradiance forecast.
appears to balance well and lead to a rRMSE of approximately 1.5% or
lower, and a rMBE slightly larger than for the default configuration. 4.3. Forecast evaluation
This study of the behaviour of Pvlib Solis with varying input was
limited to a single site, but it is illustrative of the complex connections 4.3.1. All forecasts
of the atmospheric inputs in CS models. All of the given input must be The forecast rMBE, rRMSE, and FS by forecast time are shown in
representative, whilst the use of only a single variable input may lead to Figs. 4–6. The figures show the site-specific and averaged over all sites
an imbalance. GHI forecast errors for all situations during the evaluation period. The
errors, including their absolute and relative values, and the FS, are
additionally shown for forecast times of 1–4 h in Annex in Tables
4.2. All-sky GHI estimate comparison A1–A3.
Our forecast has a site-averaged rMBE of −6.13% for 1 h, and the
To determine the performance of the Solis-Heliosat in comparison to error decreases steadily with forecast time to −9.45% at 4 h. The
the state-of-the-art Heliosat-4 at high latitudes, as well as to study the rRMSE is 31.98% for 1 h and increases to 49.86% at 4 h. The persis-
quality of the initial state of the forecast (forecast time 0 h), we com- tence forecasts both have smaller overall rMBE, but higher rRMSE from
pare the Solis-Heliosat and Heliosat-4 all-sky GHI estimates. The com- 15 to 30 min forecast time onwards. The rRMSE improvement of Solis-
parison includes all situations over the evaluation period. The site- Heliosat compared to Persistence Obs and Persistence Sat is 6.39 per-
specific and site-averaged MBE and RMSE and their relative counter- cent points and 1.95 percent points for 1 h and 4.29 percent points and
parts are shown in Table 2 for both methods. Due to the added influence 2.56 percent points for 4 h.
of clouds on solar radiation, the errors are higher than for the CS es- The small rMBE of Persistence Obs is understandable, as the starting
timate, as expected. The Solis-Heliosat method somewhat under- point is the observed irradiance. This also means it is the only method
estimates irradiance at all sites (site-averaged bias of –15.77 W/m2), able to capture the situations with irradiance reflected from nearby
with MBE mainly rising with latitude and whilst moving from marine clouds, i.e. irradiance above the CS estimate. Like our forecast, the
conditions towards inland. Heliosat-4 all-sky estimate MBE varies more Persistence Sat method underestimates in situ irradiance for all forecast
between sites (site-averaged bias of –6.43 W/m2), with larger negative times. Persistence Sat has a slightly smaller rMBE in most sites than
values in Parainen Utö and Kumpula, and overestimation in Helsinki- Solis-Heliosat, but rRMSE for Persistence Sat is higher. The difference
Vantaa and the inland sites. rRMSE rises steadily for both methods with between Persistence Sat and Solis-Heliosat is the cloud motion forecast,
latitude and moving from marine to inland, with overall rRMSE slightly which in Solis-Heliosat succeeds in capturing the cloud field develop-
higher for Heliosat-4 than for Solis-Heliosat (Heliosat-4: 32.82%, Solis- ment better than the Persistence. For Persistence Obs the accuracy in
Heliosat: 27.49%). The lower accuracy at the inland sites of Jokioinen the start of the forecast is rapidly lost, resulting in the highest rRMSE by
and Jyväskylä is expected with the prevalence of local convective 30 min forecast time for each site.
clouds during the summer. The rRMSE is slightly higher for the inland sites, but otherwise the
The overall rRMSE for both methods show good accuracy for a differences between the sites are small. The rMBE in Kumpula and
Helsinki-Vantaa for the Solis-Heliosat method decreases faster than for
Table 2 the Persistence methods, whilst in Jokioinen and Jyväskylä the rMBE
Site-specific and all-station error metrics for the all-sky GHI estimates. Error increases towards the end of the forecast. The increase may be related
metrics are shown for Solis-Heliosat and Heliosat-4 methods. The estimates
to the development of convective cloudiness in the afternoon, which is
include all situations from the validation period, where the solar zenith angle is
common in the inland sites.
80° or below.
The forecasts are additionally studied at the 1 and 3 h forecast
Method Site MBE rMBE (%) RMSE rRMSE (%) times. The results are shown in the scatter plot of satellite estimated and
(W/m2) (W/m2)
observed GHI in Fig. 7. All methods show good agreement between
Solis-Heliosat Parainen Utö −14.27 −3.49 78.70 19.23 observed and estimated values, with Solis-Heliosat containing the least
Kumpula −11.45 −3.14 91.50 25.09 outliers: the linear regression for Solis-Heliosat is closest to 1 for 1 h and
Helsinki- −11.08 −3.13 99.43 28.08 particularly for the 3 h forecast time (Slope at 1 h 0.897, 3 h 0.785).
Vantaa
Jokioinen −19.47 −5.74 103.79 30.59
Jyväskylä −22.36 −7.06 113.01 35.69 4.3.2. Forecasts with change in cloud conditions
All sites −15.77 −4.42 98.04 27.49 In addition to analysing situations including all cases, we have se-
Heliosat-4 Parainen Utö −49.85 −12.18 99.93 24.42 parated two datasets for studying situations with changes in the pre-
Kumpula −21.19 −5.81 119.03 32.64 vailing cloudiness. The clear-to-cloudy group contains forecasts with a
Helsinki- 7.20 2.03 119.37 33.71 clear start (CSI > 0.8) and at least one cloudy event (CSI < 0.3)
Vantaa during the forecast, and the cloudy-to-clear vice versa. The rMBE and
Jokioinen 15.46 4.56 121.07 35.68
rRMSE by forecast time are shown Fig. 8 and the FS in Fig. 9 for these
Jyväskylä 15.88 5.02 124.07 39.18
All sites −6.43 −1.80 117.04 32.82 two sets.
The clear-to-cloudy set for the Solis-Heliosat method has an initial

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V. Kallio-Myers, et al. Solar Energy 198 (2020) 68–80

Fig. 3. Scatter plots of the 0 h estimate between observed GHI and GHI estimated with the Solis-Heliosat (left) and the Heliosat-4 (right) methods. The plots include
samples from all sites.

Fig. 4. Site-specific and all-station rMBE by forecast time for the three compared methods. The forecasts include all situations from the validation period, where the
solar zenith angle is 80° or below.

rMBE of −33.94% which increases to positive values reaching 11.38%
at 4 h. The Persistence Sat method has the same initial, and higher
rMBE from 15 min onwards. With a clear start, the satellite-based
method is only able to either correctly depict the clear situation, or
underestimate the irradiance. Persistence Obs has a positive, increasing
rMBE, partly caused by the capture of above CS irradiance situations.
The rRMSE is lowest for the persistence methods in the start of the
forecast, but the Solis-Heliosat method performs better after 45 min in
the forecast. The decrease in rRMSE reached by Solis-Heliosat com-
pared to Persistence Obs and Persistence Sat at 4 h is 27.94 percent
points and 12.71 percent points respectively.
The cloudy-to-clear set has the opposite situation for the beginning:
with a cloudy start, the satellite-based methods are more likely to
overestimate irradiance, leading to positive rMBE of 16.10% for Solis-
Heliosat and Persistence Sat. With clear situations in the forecast, the
rMBE shifts to negative with forecast time, reaching −33.51% for Solis-
Heliosat. This is a significant improvement compared to the −89.21%
and −72.78% of Persistence Obs and Persistence Sat. The rRMSE is
lowest for Solis-Heliosat from 30 min onwards, reaching 67.90% at 4 h.
The improvement through using Solis-Heliosat at 4 h is 39.27 percent
points for Persistence Obs and 29.22 percent points for Persistence Sat.
The FS also shows Solis-Heliosat to increase the value of the method
compared to both persistence methods, with FS of above zero from
45 min onwards.

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V. Kallio-Myers, et al. Solar Energy 198 (2020) 68–80

Fig. 5. Site-specific and all-site averaged rRMSE by forecast time for the three compared methods. The forecasts include all situations from the validation period,
where the solar zenith angle is 80° or below.

Fig. 6. Solis-Heliosat forecast skill by forecast time against the two persistence methods. Forecast skill is shown for all sites separately as well as averaged over all
sites. The forecasts include all situations from the validation period, where the solar zenith angle is 80° or below.

The study of changing situations highlights the importance of cor-
rectly forecasting situations with changing cloudiness, and the inherent
inability of persistence based forecasts to forecast change. In these si-
tuations, the Solis-Heliosat method performs with significantly higher
accuracy.
5. Discussion
Our results show that the validated GHI forecasting method and its
components have good accuracy at the high latitudes of Finland. The
largest errors in the forecasts are caused by changing cloud conditions,
whilst the selection and configuration of the CS model has a minor
impact. The Solis-Heliosat method performs better than the persistence
forecasts in most situations, and can be used to produce valuable GHI
forecasts for various applications related to solar energy. Our results
also shows that methods based on geostationary satellite imagers are a
viable option even in relatively high latitudes, and creates a suitable
platform for further development.
The CS model comparison mainly illustrates the effect of the at-
mospheric variable input in CS model performance. The results show
that the accuracy reached by all of the models is sufficient for use as the
CS estimate of the forecasting method, particularly taking into con-
sideration the significantly larger impact on the forecasting errors
produced by clouds. With small differences between the CS models in
their accuracy, other criteria related to the implementation of the
model also affect the selection process. Pvlib Solis (with default inputs)
was selected for use as the CS estimate because of its good performance,
as well as the model’s good practical aspects and the potential for

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V. Kallio-Myers, et al. Solar Energy 198 (2020) 68–80

Fig. 7. Scatter plots of the GHI forecast made with the three compared methods (in columns). The top row shows the forecast at a forecast time of 1 h and the row
below at 3 h. The plots include samples from all stations.

Fig. 8. All-site averaged rMBE (above) and rRMSE (below) by forecast time for forecasts with changing cloudiness. The first column shows the Clear-to-cloudy
dataset and the second column the Cloudy-to-clear dataset.

76
V. Kallio-Myers, et al.
Fig. 9. Solis-Heliosat forecast skill by forecast time against the two persistence methods. The forecast skill is shown averaged over all sites, and for forecasts with
changing cloudiness.
improvement with changes in input. Using suitable AOD and WV input
data would most likely improve the accuracy of the estimates, but based
on the input comparison for Kumpula, the improvements would be
moderate compared to the errors caused by cloudiness.
The performance of the Solis-Heliosat method is consistent with
validations of similar methods with a temporal resolution of 15 min for
other areas. Arbizu-Barrena et al. (2017) report their method to have an
rRMSE of 25–35% at the start of the forecast, rising to 35–45% at 3 h
into the forecast. The comparison was made for three sites in Spain.
Wang et al. (2019) have tested their forecast for the Netherlands, and
reach an rRMSE of 22–26% for the starting point, depending on the
month of evaluation. By 3 h into the forecast the rRMSE rises to
32–50%. The values in Wang et al. (2019) are reported for three months
separately, which slightly reduces the comparability between the
methods. Solis-Heliosat, with an rRMSE of 17–34% for the starting
point, and 31–50% for 3 h, achieves similar accuracy despite the high
latitudes being challenging for a method relying on geostationary
weather satellite data. Other validations for GHI forecasts have been
made, but often the focus is on hourly or daily GHI.
A portion of the rRMSE in satellite-based GHI estimate comparisons
can also be attributed to the spatial variability of GHI in comparing an
area estimate to a point measurement (Hakuba et al., 2014). The spatial
variability is reduced heavily by temporal averaging. Wang et al.
(2012) reported a difference of even 100 W/m2 in the hourly GHI be-
tween sites with a distance of around 6 km, whilst Zelenka et al., (1999)
found a distance of 5 km to produce an rRMSE of 15% for hourly GHI.
It must be noted that using persistence forecasts in GHI forecast
benchmarking is a usual practice, but not entirely conclusive. The value
of a forecast is dependent on both its accuracy, and its ability to prevent
damage or costs to the user. Changes in cloudiness can cause sudden
variations in PV production and their correct prediction is therefore
necessary, but persistence forecasts have no ability to produce valuable
information about change. Due to this inability, a persistence forecast is
also somewhat insufficient as a benchmark when focusing only on si-
tuations with changing cloudiness.
Our results on the comparison between our and the Persistence Sat
methods show how even a simple cloud movement scheme improves
the forecast over a persistence method. The cloud movement scheme,
however, is unable to move areas with no clouds. This causes the
forecast to get cloudier, as a single point is unable to become fully
cleared of cloudiness. As the retrieval of motion vectors is based on the
movement of clouds, the lack of motion in clear areas is a characteristic
issue with the method. Some ways have been used to combat this issue,
but few have been compared independently from the rest of the fore-
casting scheme. A very common solution is to use NWP data to provide
the movement field (e.g. Wang et al., 2019), however, with NWP-based
movement fields the determination of the cloud height and the
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Solar Energy 198 (2020) 68–80
appropriate wind field height can cause uncertainty. Other solutions
include e.g. using radar data or the use of imagery from the satellite WV
channels. Despite this issue in Solis-Heliosat, however, it performs with
a relatively good accuracy compared to the methods that have a solu-
tion to the issue. In the future the cloud movement method will be
revised, and potentially NWP data will be added to the method.
There are additional means used in satellite based GHI forecast
methods to combat the errors related to the satellite-based method, for
instance parallax correction. The parallax error is more significant in
higher latitudes, but due to the higher satellite zenith angle of SEVIRI,
the correction may also be harder to apply. The cloud position and
height must be accurately known for the correction to improve accu-
racy, but with a larger pixel area, this may not be easily achieved.
6. Conclusions
We have developed and validated a GHI forecast method for high
latitudes, based on imagery retrieved from geostationary satellites. The
components for the method, the CS estimate, the all-sky estimate, and
the forecast, were all compared and evaluated in southern Finland to
assess the value of satellite-based GHI forecasts in a high latitude area.
We found that all the compared CS models work well in southern
Finland, with the atmospheric parameters as given input affecting the
model performance more than the selection of a specific model. Due to
good overall accuracy and practical reasons, Pvlib Solis with a default
configuration was selected for use in the Solis-Heliosat method. The all-
sky estimate naturally had larger errors caused by cloudiness, but the
accuracy of the estimate was comparable to the Heliosat-4 method used
for the comparison and found to be sufficient for use as the initial state
of the forecast.
Taking into account the simplicity of the Solis-Heliosat method and
the challenging area, the forecast method performed well overall, and
at a comparable accuracy to other similar high temporal frequency
methods developed and tested for mainland Europe. The Solis-Heliosat
forecast performed better than the persistence forecasts in most cases,
particularly in environments with changes in the prevailing cloudiness.
The cloud movement scheme in Solis-Heliosat is currently unable to
produce movement for cloudless areas. This characteristic deficiency
could be overcome with the addition of NWP data into the forecast, or
by taking the entire movement field from NWP models. The CS variable
inputs could also be tuned better for the area, but this would be ex-
pected to have a lesser impact.
The good performance of our forecast shows that satellite-based GHI
forecasting methods are a viable option in PV forecasting also for the
high latitudes, and supports further development of such methods.
V. Kallio-Myers, et al. Solar Energy 198 (2020) 68–80

Acknowledgements Funding sources

We thank the principal investigator Gerrit De Leeuw and Veijo The work conducted in this paper has been partially supported by
Aaltonen for their effort in establishing and maintaining the Helsinki the Fortum Foundation (grant number 201800172). We also acknowl-
(Kumpula) AERONET site. edge funding by the Academy of Finland (decision 284536) and it’s
Strategic Research Council (decision 292854).

Annex

See Fig. A1 and Tables A1–A3.

Fig. A1. CS model rMBE (%) and rRMSE (%) for

Kumpula over the whole evaluation period, in-
cluding only values where the solar zenith angle is
80° or below. The error metrics are shown for Pvlib
Solis with default input and various given inputs
(Aerosol Optical Depth: AOD, Water Vapour: WV,
Extra-terrestrial Direct Normal Irradiance: EDNI).
When an input is not specified, default values are in
place.

Table A1
GHI forecast MBE (W/m2) and rMBE (in brackets, %) by forecast time for the three forecast methods. Errors are shown for all sites separately as well as averaged over
all sites for forecast times of 1–4 h.
Method Site 1h 2h 3h 4h

Solis-Heliosat Parainen Utö −19.66 (−4.80) −24.24 (−5.92) −33.42 (−8.17) −46.17 (−11.28)
Kumpula −20.62 (−5.65) −32.38 (−8.88) −38.52 (−10.56) −43.22 (−11.85)
Helsinki-Vantaa −19.89 (−5.62) −26.39 (−7.45) −29.10 (−8.22) −31.83 (−8.99)
Jokioinen −22.23 (−6.55) −23.36 (−6.88) −20.05 (−5.91) −15.08 (−4.44)
Jyvaskylä −26.85 (−8.48) −30.10 (−9.51) −31.69 (−10.01) −32.25 (−10.19)
All sites −21.87 (−6.13) −27.31 (−7.66) −30.56 (−8.57) −33.69 (−9.45)

Persistence Sat Parainen Utö −20.22 (−4.94) −27.70 (−6.77) −35.97 (−8.79) −44.55 (−10.89)
Kumpula −15.00 (−4.11) −19.83 (−5.44) −23.57 (−6.46) −29.58 (−8.11)
Helsinki-Vantaa −13.78 (−3.89) −17.54 (−4.96) −21.17 (−5.98) −23.96 (−6.77)
Jokioinen −21.91 (−6.46) −24.36 (−7.18) −25.51 (−7.52) −24.96 (−7.35)
Jyvaskylä −22.95 (−7.25) −22.70 (−7.17) −22.11 (−6.98) −20.08 (−6.34)
All sites −18.81 (−5.27) −22.45 (−6.29) −25.67 (−7.20) −28.59 (−8.02)

Persistence Obs Parainen Utö −5.51 (−1.35) −11.69 (−2.86) −17.97 (−4.39) −23.98 (−5.86)
Kumpula −2.73 (−0.75) −6.87 (−1.88) −9.46 (−2.59) −14.04 (−3.85)
Helsinki-Vantaa −1.07 (−0.30) −3.29 (−0.93) −4.91 (−1.39) −5.46 (−1.54)
Jokioinen −0.74 (−0.22) −1.30 (−0.38) −0.54 (−0.16) 2.13 (0.63)
Jyvaskylä 0.38 (0.12) 1.50 (0.48) 2.69 (0.85) 5.10 (1.61)
All sites −1.93 (−0.54) −4.31 (−1.21) −6.00 (−1.68) −7.19 (−2.02)

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V. Kallio-Myers, et al. Solar Energy 198 (2020) 68–80

Table A2
GHI forecast RMSE (W/m2) and rRMSE (in brackets, %) by forecast time for the three forecast methods. Errors are shown for all sites separately as well as averaged
over all sites for forecast times of 1–4 h.
Method Site 1h 2h 3h 4h

Solis-Heliosat Parainen Utö 94.17 (23.01) 119.84 (29.28) 141.14 (34.49) 158.59 (38.75)
Kumpula 108.08 (29.64) 136.81 (37.51) 161.98 (44.41) 181.83 (49.86)
Helsinki-Vantaa 118.32 (33.42) 145.95 (41.22) 167.95 (47.43) 181.73 (51.33)
Jokioinen 121.70 (35.86) 144.28 (42.52) 164.40 (48.45) 180.94 (53.32)
Jyvaskylä 125.10 (39.51) 147.50 (46.58) 167.97 (53.05) 184.54 (58.28)
All sites 114.06 (31.98) 139.26 (39.05) 161.01 (45.15) 177.81 (49.86)

Persistence Sat Parainen Utö 105.03 (25.67) 134.49 (32.86) 158.68 (38.77) 173.65 (42.43)
Kumpula 111.14 (30.48) 141.82 (38.89) 165.97 (45.51) 186.09 (51.03)
Helsinki-Vantaa 125.31 (35.39) 154.07 (43.51) 178.94 (50.54) 194.71 (54.99)
Jokioinen 129.26 (38.09) 155.68 (45.88) 178.80 (52.69) 193.97 (57.16)
Jyvaskylä 131.75 (41.61) 153.77 (48.56) 168.92 (53.35) 185.67 (58.64)
All sites 120.99 (33.93) 148.21 (41.56) 170.41 (47.79) 186.95 (52.42)

Persistence Obs Parainen Utö 114.28 (27.93) 142.42 (34.80) 162.61 (39.74) 177.28 (43.32)
Kumpula 124.46 (34.13) 147.54 (40.46) 170.64 (46.79) 187.66 (51.46)
Helsinki-Vantaa 139.41 (39.37) 164.64 (46.50) 185.17 (52.30) 199.04 (56.21)
Jokioinen 148.45 (43.75) 172.69 (50.89) 191.43 (56.41) 202.43 (59.65)
Jyvaskylä 153.35 (48.43) 169.27 (53.46) 185.20 (58.49) 197.98 (62.53)
All sites 136.84 (38.37) 159.80 (44.81) 179.34 (50.29) 193.11 (54.15)

Table A3
Solis-Heliosat forecast skill (unitless) by forecast time against the two persistence methods. Forecast skill is shown for all sites separately as well as averaged over all
sites for forecast times of 1–4 h.
Method Site 1h 2h 3h 4h

Solis-Heliosat vs. Persistence Parainen Utö 0.103 0.109 0.111 0.087

Sat Kumpula 0.028 0.035 0.024 0.023
Helsinki- 0.056 0.053 0.061 0.067
Vantaa
Jokioinen 0.059 0.073 0.081 0.067
Jyväskylä 0.050 0.041 0.006 0.006
All sites 0.057 0.060 0.055 0.049

Solis-Heliosat vs. Persistence Parainen Utö 0.176 0.159 0.132 0.105

Obs Kumpula 0.132 0.073 0.051 0.031
Helsinki- 0.151 0.114 0.093 0.087
Vantaa
Jokioinen 0.180 0.165 0.141 0.106
Jyväskylä 0.184 0.129 0.093 0.068
All sites 0.166 0.129 0.102 0.079

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