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Solar Energy 93 (2013) 267–279

www.elsevier.com/locate/solener

Data sets for energy rating of photovoltaic modules

Thomas Huld a,⇑, Ewan Dunlop a, Hans Georg Beyer b, Ralph Gottschalg c
a
European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Italy
b
University of Agder, Department of Engineering, Norway
c
Loughborough University, Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology, United Kingdom

Received 14 July 2011; received in revised form 12 October 2012; accepted 23 April 2013
Available online 16 May 2013

Communicated by: Associate Editor Jan Kleissl

Abstract

A proposal for generating standard climatic data sets for use in energy rating of photovoltaic (PV) modules is presented which will
give a good comparability between different technologies. The current proposal of standard data sets consisting of “typical days” do not
give realistic estimates of PV performance and thus is not sufficient as a rating standard. A dataset striking the balance between being
significant for any location but does not consisting of too much data is required. A method to generate such a dataset is presented, meet-
ing all the requirements of an international standard while being sufficiently accurate to differentiate between different devices of different
manufacturers. It is suggested to work with annual data-sets for specific climatic zones, and compare devices based on their module per-
formance ratio. Using geographical information systems and proven modeling approaches, it is demonstrated that seven such annual
data sets give sufficient detail and relevance to allow a comparison of different PV device technologies in all European operating envi-
ronments. The method to use GIS datasets to identify suitable sites and then use more accurate, specific measurement data based on
long-term averages for chosen sites. It is shown that the year-to-year variation is minimal, thus making these datasets suitable for com-
paring typical energy yields of different devices, i.e. carry out an energy rating. The study is currently limited to European data and cli-
matic zones, which is sufficient to derive the methodology for generating and classifying the data. An international standard will,
however, need a wider coverage. The extension to other data-sets and climatic zones is proposed and will have to be carried out by
the appropriate standards bodies if this is to become an internationally accepted standard.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Photovoltaics; Energy rating; Solar radiation

1. Introduction normal operation. Nevertheless, this standard power rating

Traditionally, photovoltaic (PV) modules are described
by their maximum power, which is measured under Stan-
dard Test Conditions (STC).1 The combination of environ-
mental conditions in STC is not representative of real
operating conditions, and is also hardly ever seen during
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 0332 785273.
E-mail address: Thomas.Huld@jrc.ec.europa.eu (T. Huld).
1
STC is defined by the International Electrotechnical Commission
(IEC) in standard no. 61215. The conditions are in-plane irradiance of
1000 W/m2, module temperature of 25 °C, perpendicular incidence of the
irradiance and standard clear sky spectrum with an Air Mass of 1.5.
is the one declared by the manufacturer as the power of the
module. The PV industry has matured in recent years and
rating is now moving towards a measure of the output of
photovoltaic modules, i.e. the energy production. This
needs to take into account differences between modules
with respect to performance at low irradiance or high mod-
ule temperature. To obtain comparability between technol-
ogies and devices it is crucial to have an energy rating
available, analogously to the power rating. Power rating
is an excellent tool for comparing modules in production,
but what is required is to give planners and users the option
to have a first order comparison of typical energy yields for
different design options.

0038-092X/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2013.04.014
268 T. Huld et al. / Solar Energy 93 (2013) 267–279
Nomenclature
grel module efficiency relative to efficiency at STC,
also known as Module Performance Ratio
(MPR) (dimensionless)
Eyear total energy produced in a year (kW h)
G in-plane irradiance (W/m2)
GSTC in-plane irradiance at STC (=1000 W/m2)
Ǵ normalized irradiance Ǵ = G/1000 (dimension-
less)
Hyear total in-plane irradiation in one year
k 1 . . . k 6 coefficients of the module power model
k 01 . . . k 06 coefficients of the module power model, scaled
to a nominal module power of 1 W
In principle it is of course possible for PV plant inves-
tors/installers to conduct a measurement campaign at a
specific site of interest, involving several module types for
an extended period covering seasonal changes (i.e. mini-
mum 1 year duration). However, this would be prohibi-
tively expensive, even for very large installations, as the
time delay would not be acceptable. A detailed yield predic-
tion could also be carried out by commissioning measure-
ments for energy prediction for module types to be
considered for an installation. This will be done only for
a very small number of modules and most likely only for
one type as this quickly becomes very costly. What is
required is a method that allows a potential buyer to pre-
select types for a closer analysis. This is done by an energy
rating, where devices can be quickly compared based on
data-sheet values for typical, similar locations. Such a stan-
dard is currently under development and this paper aims at
giving the missing part, the standard data sets, or better the
methodology to derive this as the specific data sets need to
be developed by the appropriate standards committee, but
the methodology will be very useful for this or the develop-
ment of standard datasets for other purposes.
The IEC is currently developing such an energy rating.
What is currently missing are standard datasets, as these
have proven to be the most controversial parts in this stan-
dard. This paper will deliver a methodology to create such
datasets with wide acceptability. The aim is to achieve a rat-
ing, i.e. values that potentially can be added to a datasheet.
In order to clarify the nature of this contribution it
would be useful to state some definitions:
1.1. Power rating
The power of a module when measured at STC.
1.2. Specific power measurements
A set of measurements of module power under different
conditions (irradiance, temperature, spectrum etc.).
kT coefficient for module temperature as a function
of irradiance (°Cm2 W1)
MPR Module Performance Ratio (dimensionless)
P instantaneous PV module power (W)
PSTC nominal power of PV module under Standard
Test Conditions
STC Standard test conditions, G = 1000 W/m2,
Tmod = 25 °C, air mass = 1.5 global
T temperature (°C)
Tmod module temperature (°C)
Tamb ambient temperature (°C)
T0 module temperature relative to standard test
conditions, T0 = Tmod  25 (°C)
1.3. Energy rating
A set of specific power measurements used in conjunc-
tion with a standardized calculation methodology and
standard data sets. This makes it possible to compare the
relative performance of different module types. This is a
‘typical’ energy yield for this technology for the given con-
ditions, not a site specific prediction. The key is to obtain
comparability not absolute modeling accuracy (as the latter
will include some very specific conditions that will actually
interfere with the comparability). Typically this will deliver
the Module Performance Ratio (MPR), as this enables
comparison over much wider areas then the kW h/kWp
which are normally being used for the yield prediction.
1.4. Standard data set for energy rating
A data set is the data used for the energy rating, speci-
fying time scale and conditions of the rating. The require-
ments for this are discussed below and a method to
develop this is derived in the paper.
1.5. Yield prediction
An estimate of the total energy production for a PV
system at a specific site. The difference to the rating is that
an estimate is performed of the specific yield (kW h/kWp)
for a specific site and system. This requires much more
detailed site assessment and modeling than the rating
itself and is carried out in a different stage of potential
projects (where the costs for specific measurements are
more acceptable).
The aim of this paper is to provide a methodology to
generate the ‘Standard Data Sets’ for an Energy Rating
standard. This is more complicated than in the case of
power rating, as performance is site dependent. The num-
ber of different possible installations and sites is near infi-
nite, thus this paper is concerned how to reduce this to a
number that can potentially be added to a datasheet.
 T. Huld et al. / Solar Energy 93 (2013) 267–279
A method enabling an unbiased comparison of devices
in a representative environment has been proposed by the
IEC. This employs various simplification and validation
steps to ensure a practical and applicable standard,
although it is limited to fixed installations of flat plate col-
lectors. This has resulted in a standard currently consisting
of four separate parts.
The first is the measurement of key module parameters
in dependence of temperature and irradiance (published
as IEC 61853 part 1 2010). This is often referred to as
the performance surface. Part 2: Measurement required
for estimation effects of angle of incidence, spectral
response and module operating temperature (part 2 is at
the time of writing this paper in its final stage of voting).
Part 3 gives a suggested algorithm to be used for the calcu-
lation and is close to being submitted as a New Work Item
(this is the official start for any draft standard). Part 4 will
prescribe the standard environments to be considered for
the rating to be defined. This part has not yet been written
due to a mixture of political and scientific reasons and a
way out of the current impasse is urgently required and will
be delivered by this paper.
It must be known what standard data set will be consid-
ered in order to devise and adjust the modeling algorithms.
This lack of a data set has led to a significant difficulty in
defining the parts 2 and 3 of the ER standard as it is a
key input and also defines the required measurements. This
paper presents a proposal for the formation of these stan-
dard data sets to be contained in an energy rating standard.
Key characteristics of such standard data sets should be:
1. Appropriate for all technologies, i.e. include all data
required.
2. Unbiased to all technologies, i.e. not exclude informa-
tion which could favor or disadvantage certain
technologies.
3. Informative for the user, i.e. give an indication of how
much energy can be generated, given a known perfor-
mance surface for the module being investigated.
4. Realistic, i.e. have appropriate combinations of irradi-
ance, temperature for a given site and not only statistical
distributions of un-correlated values and not only a col-
lection of extreme values.
This will impact on what these data sets contain and
how they can be constructed as discussed in this paper.
This paper is structured in the following way: Section 2
reviews in detail the requirements for the standard data
sets. Section 3 describes the tools used to generate the sug-
gested standard datasets, followed by an identification of
suitable data sets in Section 4. This will deliver a method-
ology to derive the required standard data sets as well as
give a selection criterion of which data sets might be appro-
priate to use. Sections 5 and 6 describe the construction
and analysis of the suggested data sets. Finally, Section 7
provides an outline of a suggested extension of the work
to cover the whole world.
269
An example of the proposed data sets described in this
paper can be downloaded from the web page of supplemen-
tary material, which can be found at: http://re.jrc.ec.euro-
pa.eu/esti/standard_data_sets.
2. Data required for a standard data set
2.1. Quantities needed for a standard data set
The required meteorological inputs for the proposed
energy rating standards are defined in part three of the pro-
posed standard IEC 61853, which currently is under discus-
sion. The environmental conditions required for the
calculations are:
 Irradiance in plane of the array. Typical meteorological
data sets are measured using horizontal irradiance sen-
sors and ambient temperatures. Only very few installa-
tions will be at this elevation angle, most installations
will be inclined at optimum angle. This can be calculated
from standard data sets as demonstrated in Šúri et al.
(2005). To ensure relevance of the standard, it is pro-
posed to use optimum angle as a standard mounting
for an energy rating and thus the standard data set
should be given at this condition. Alternatively, the solar
radiation data sets could be provided as the direct and
diffuse components of the irradiance, together with
information about the sun position in the sky at each
time in the data set. However, this would require that
the Standard include a model for how to calculate the
in-plane irradiance from these components, as well as
as a requirement that a specific inclination angle be used.
 Effective irradiance, which would be spectrally corrected
irradiance. While there is clear evidence that spectral
effects have an effect on the energy yield of devices
(Gottschalg et al., 2003), there is very limited data avail-
able for covering the geographical variation of average
annual spectra. In the future this should be included in
a standard, but the required data sets must be generated
and validated prior to this. The models available today
are SMARTS (Gueymard, 2001) and SPCTRL (Bird
and Riordan, 1986) which cover sunny climates only.
Not considering cloud cover can result in very signifi-
cant uncertainties in the description of device perfor-
mance (Gottschalg et al., 2004) and affects different
technologies differently. The unbiased constraint given
in the introduction thus requires either to consider the
effect of clouds or exclude spectral effects completely.
The current models for cloud cover SEDES (Nann
and Riordan, 1991) and ASPIRE (Betts et al., 2003)
are validated for a single type of spectroradiometer each
and thus may rather represent the idiosyncrasies of the
given measurement device than real changes in the envi-
ronment. It has also been shown that using clear sky
models, which today are the best validated models,
results in a reduced agreement of modeling with mea-
surements (Friesen et al., 2009). Thus the authors feel
270 T. Huld et al. / Solar Energy 93 (2013) 267–279
that at this point in time it is not possible to create spec-
tral data that are robust and unbiased enough to be part
of a standard and it is best to stick initially to broad-
band irradiance only.
 Directionally resolved radiance (sky radiance as a func-
tion of position in the sky and sun position) which is
used for calculating the angle of incidence effects. Simi-
larly to the spectral modifiers, there are hardly any mea-
sured data available for this and the existing studies are
often limited to single sites, e.g. (Brunger and Hooper,
1993). Similarly to spectral modifiers, the use of such a
model does not necessarily improve modeling quality
(Friesen et al., 2009). Thus the authors feel that a simple
split into beam and diffuse irradiance will create as rep-
resentative a data set as adding the additional complica-
tions of anisotropic sky modeling and it is proposed to
include beam and diffuse irradiance only in the standard
data sets.
 Air temperature (the standard 2-m air temperature mea-
surements from meteorological stations), which is used
to calculate the module temperature. This can be
obtained from standard meteorological stations, as has
been done in this work. It is also shown not to increase
modeling uncertainty significantly (Friesen et al., 2009).
 Wind speed is a very site specific effect. It depends
strongly on the local environment and as such is very
difficult to give as a representative value. The effect
depends further on the correlation of irradiance, ambi-
ent temperature and wind speed. There is a correlation
between high wind speeds and less sunny conditions at
many (though not all) sites. Thus, even on high wind
speed sites, one would not expect to see the full impact
of wind cooling when considering annual datasets.
There have discussions on wind speed variations within
larger fields, resulting in reduced cooling e.g. in the cen-
tre of a PV system. Overall the authors feel that a spe-
cific wind speed might decrease the representativeness
of the data set. Furthermore, a round robin intercom-
parison of energy modeling programs (Friesen et al.,
2009), demonstrated that one could achieve excellent
agreement of the energy yield of devices without consid-
ering wind speed.
The conclusion from this analysis is that at the very min-
imum a meteorological data set for energy rating should
contain broadband irradiance and air temperature. Based
upon this analysis, the paper will identify regions and clas-
sifications for the environment that can be used as standard
environments.
2.2. Number and length of data sets
The informative constraint requires the data sets to be of
a meaningful length and number. Standard days were sug-
gested in a previous draft of the IEC 61853 standard. These
days are renamed versions of the days proposed by Marion
et al. (1999). The philosophy behind selecting these days
40
35
HIHT
MIHT
30
Taweight [ ºC]
25
20
NICE
15 MIMT
10
5
LILT HILT
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Daily Insolation [kWh/m2/d]
Fig. 1. Applicability of currently proposed standard data sets for a
location in central Europe. The days proposed do hardly map to any of
the days observed in a given year.
was to find rather extreme conditions that would allow
an umbrella around all different operating environments.
Days which were proposed were Low-Irradiance-Low-
Temperature (LILT), Medium-Irradiance-Medium-Tem-
perature (MIMT), Medium-Irradiance-High-Temperature
(MIHT), High-Irradiance-Low-Temperature (HILT),
High-Irradiance-High-Temperature (HIHT) and Normal-
Irradiance-Cool-Environment (NICE). Only NICE and
MIMT are seen in the real measurements, albeit in rather
rare cases. However, it is the opinion of the authors that
this is not sufficient. This is for two reasons. First, it has
been shown that for energy rating a minimum period of
1 year is the most appropriate to obtain repeatable and reli-
able ratings (Friesen et al., 2009; Dittmann et al., 2010).
Second, standard days do not give a direct indication of
the energy yield at any given site. This is illustrated in
Fig. 1, where the daily irradiation and average temperature
values are plotted for all days measured at a central Euro-
pean location as presented in (Roy et al., 2008). The use of
extreme data sets will not deliver the information required
by the user. It is paramount to use more realistic data sets.
Long-term time series of irradiance and temperature
values are not yet freely available for every possible given
site. This would also be impracticable for datasheet inclu-
sion. The amount of data will need to be reduced. This
paper suggests to do this by using climatic regions covering
all relevant parts of the world. One needs to keep in mind
that the aim is to arrive at a ‘standard rating dataset’,
which excludes spatial data sets (such as satellite-based
maps or GIS data), containing data series for very large
numbers of locations. As pointed out above, these could
hardly be included in a datasheet. In this context, a “cli-
matic region” would not be a contiguous geographical
region but the set of all geographical regions in which a
PV module has a similar average Module Performance
Ratio (MPR).2 For instance, southern New Zealand might
2
The module performance ratio is the ratio of the actual PV module
energy output to the theoretical output that would be obtained if the
module always had the same conversion efficiency as under Standard Test
Conditions. It is defined in Section 3.
 T. Huld et al. / Solar Energy 93 (2013) 267–279
be grouped with parts of Europe in terms of PV
performance.
3. Modeling PV performance
The proposed standard data sets must of course be use-
ful for estimating PV performance. They should therefore
be applicable to mathematical models of PV power output.
A very specific standard has been proposed by the IEC as
part 3 of the proposed standard IEC 61853, but this is not
as validated as some other approaches presented in the lit-
erature. However, the model specifics do not matter in
terms of suitability of standard datasets as long as the
model is intrinsically consistent and reproduces all
device-specific effects.
In the literature there exist several different mathemat-
ical models for the performance of PV modules as func-
tions of in-plane irradiance and module. Other models
estimate the module temperature from ambient tempera-
ture, irradiance, and sometimes wind speed and direction
(Skoplaki et al., 2008). Friesen et al. (2009) compared
several of these models and found that for crystalline sil-
icon PV modules and for most thin-film technologies the
models yield very similar results when predicting the
annual energy output from the modules. Apart from
amorphous silicon, all models agreed very well for differ-
ent locations, typically within 3% and constant trends.
The conclusion from this is that it is possible to accu-
rately model the performance of a large variety of PV
modules using a representative data set of irradiance
and temperature values. The differences in modeling
accuracy were not in the models themselves, but largely
due to the parametrization of the devices.
The model chosen for the simulations in this paper is
described in Huld et al. (2010). The application of the
model to crystalline silicon modules has been investigated
in more detail in Huld et al. (2011). This model has been
compared with a number of other models (Dittmann
et al., 2010) where it was found that the models under
investigation performed well for a range of PV module
technologies and gave very similar results. The advantage
of using this model is that it is possible to combine mea-
sured data from many PV modules to obtain a general
model for a given PV technology. Thus, (Huld et al.,
2011) presents the results of applying the model to 18
crystalline silicon modules and shows that the perfor-
mance (measured as the module performance ratio, see
below) varies between modules with a standard deviation
of only 1.2% for a central European climate. In this way
the results will not depend on a particular set of measure-
ments on a particular module. (Once the model coeffi-
cients have been found by fitting to measured module
data, the model requires only the in-plane irradiance
and the ambient temperature as an input, which was seen
as desirable earlier. Essentially it is a simplified descrip-
tion of the performance surfaces also being used by the
271
IEC 61853 part 1. The model assumes the instantaneous
power P to be given by:
2
PðG0 ; T 0 Þ ¼ G0 ðP STC;m þ k 1 lnðG0 Þ þ k 2 lnðG0 Þ þ k 3 T 0
þ k 4 T 0 lnðG0 Þ þ k 5 T 0 lnðG0 Þ2 þ k 6 T 2 Þ ð1Þ
where the normalized in-plane irradiance and module tem-
peratures are given by:
G0  G=GSTC
T 0  T mod  T STC ð2Þ
2
with GSTC = 1000 W/m and TSTC = 25 °C being the irra-
diance and temperature at standard test conditions. Here,
PSTC,n is the nominal power of the PV module or system,
and the coefficients k1 to k6 depend empirically on the type
of module. In Huld et al. (2010), values were determined
for these coefficients for crystalline silicon, for CIS/CIGS
and for CdTe modules.
The module temperature Tmod can be estimated from the
irradiance and the ambient temperature using a simple lin-
ear relation:
T mod  T amb  k T G ð3Þ
The empirical constant kT typically has a value of 0.03–
0.035 °C m2/W for free-standing modules.
Another way of expressing the PV module performance
is in terms of the relative conversion efficiency, defined as:
grel ðG0 ; T 0 Þ  P ðG0 ; T 0 Þ=ðP STC;m G0 Þ ð4Þ
The relative efficiency represents the ratio of the PV con-
version efficiency under given conditions to that which is
found at Standard Test Conditions (STCs). It is closely
related to the Performance Ratio which is the ratio of the
energy output of a complete PV system to the theoretical
output with the PV modules performing as under STC
and no balance-of-system losses. In the following we will
therefore refer to this quantity as the Module Performance
Ratio, MPR.
The expression in Eq. (4) refers to the instantaneous
power of the module under the given conditions. In itself,
this is not very useful to compare PV modules since it
depends on the instantaneous conditions which may favor
one module over another. It is therefore useful to define the
average MPR:
RT
1000 W =m2 t¼0 Pdt
hgrel i  RT
P STC;m t¼0 Gdt
Terming the total in-plane irradiation in a year Hyear,
and the total module energy output Eyear, this can also be
written:
1000 W =m2 Eyear
grel;year ¼ ð5Þ
P STC;m H year
From this expression it is clear that if two different
yearly time series of irradiance and temperature yield the
same MPR, the module energy output Eyear is proportional
to the total in-plane irradiation Hyear.
272 T. Huld et al. / Solar Energy 93 (2013) 267–279
4. Identifying relevant climatic regions
The rationale for the present study is the fact that PV
performance depends on the climatic conditions, which
are more general than using longitude and latitude alone.
This should also help to overcome the ‘in-my-backyard’
attitude which in many ways has hindered an agreement
on specific standard data sets. Since it is not feasible to
measure or even model the performance of a PV module
for all possible combinations of climatic conditions, it is
useful to define regions within the region of interest where
the climate is similar, and then use a data set from a single
location representative of that region. This is required if
these data sets are useful for data sheet inclusions. One also
needs to keep in mind that energy rating is a service which
will be offered by specialized laboratories and these labora-
tories need to work with the same data. Thus it is imprac-
tical to require spatially resolved data such as satellite data
or any other GIS based system. However, to arrive at rep-
resentative sites, one needs to establish using exactly these
geographic mappings that the chosen sites are representa-
tive for a specified region.
This strategy requires a definition of what constitutes
“similar climatic conditions”. In one of the earlier
attempts, the European Solar Radiation Atlas (Scharmer
and Greif, 2000), climatic regions are based on yearly aver-
age clearness index, which is the ratio of annual horizontal
global irradiation at the earth surface to that which would
be seen in the absence of the atmosphere. ESRA deals with
Europe only and there are nowadays data sets covering
other continents as well, but it serves as a good case in
point for the following discussion. There are a number of
problems with this simple definition of climatic zones.
First, given the large latitudinal extension of Europe (from
35°N to 70°N), the yearly irradiation can vary quite
strongly even with a similar clearness index. Second, nei-
ther air temperature nor its correlation to irradiance are
considered.
A method was demonstrated for estimating the PV per-
formance for various PV technologies using data sets of
irradiance and temperature for a large number of locations
in Europe (Huld et al., 2010). In this work the PV perfor-
mance was described as the relative efficiency or Module
Performance Ratio (MPR), grel, grel was calculated using
the model in Eqs. (1)–(4). In Huld et al. (2010), the MPR
was calculated using hourly radiation values derived from
satellite (Hammer et al., 1998; Lorenz, 2004). These satel-
lite-derived data have been extensively validated, showing
not just a low mean bias error, but also that the resulting
data have a probability density function similar to mea-
sured data from the BSRN network of radiation measure-
ment stations (see Section 7). For this reason, they will be
suitable for use with the models presented in Section 3
(Beyer et al., 2009).
The MPR can also be calculated as an annual average
value, grel,year, as shown in Eq. (5). If two locations have
the same grel,year for a given PV technology, it means that
PV systems at the two locations will differ in performance
only in proportion to the difference in annual irradiation
at the two sites. Hence, an estimate of PV performance
based on data from one of the sites can then be trans-
lated to the other site using only the yearly total irradia-
tion at the two sites. This is useful because the yearly
global irradiation is more likely to be known for a given
site than the detailed irradiance and temperature time
series.
For these reasons it is proposed to use the yearly average
MPR as a measure to discriminate between climatic zones.
Of course, in principle this determination of climatic zones
should be done for each different PV technology. In prac-
tice, the results will tend to be similar. Figs. 2 and 3 show
maps of grel,year for two PV technologies: crystalline silicon
(c-Si), and CdTe (Huld et al., 2010). Although the absolute
value of grel,year varies considerably between technologies
(in particular it is higher for CdTe), the geographical vari-
ation is quite similar. The main difference is that c-Si shows
higher MPR at high altitude, while CdTe only displays this
to a small degree. The data for the maps of MPR in
Figs. 2 and 3 are available at the web page with supplemen-
tary material (http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/esti/standard_
data_sets).
Based on these maps, seven different climatic regions
were identified in Europe. The selection was made essen-
tially by visual inspection of the map, choosing contiguous
areas with similar module performance ratio. A similar
comparison should be done in the future for other parts
of the world to identify a manageable number of climatic
regions. The regions are described in the following,
together with a comparison with the climatic regions
defined in ESRA.
Regions 1–5 are specifically for the low-lying
(<600 m) parts of the regions in question. Higher-eleva-
tion areas tend to have somewhat different climatic
properties.
4.1. Region 1
The British Isles except for Southern England, plus
Central Scandinavia and Southern Finland. Summers
are cool, and the position is fairly far north, meaning that
a most of the solar energy is delivered during the summer
months. These effects combine to give a high MPR (0.93
for c-Si).
This area corresponds to ESRA Area 1, but without the
Low Countries and Northern Germany.
4.2. Region 2
South-East England, Normandy, Low Countries, Den-
mark and southern Sweden, Northern Germany, Poland
and the Baltic Countries. Summer temperatures are some-
what higher than in Area 1, and the irradiation is less
 T. Huld et al. / Solar Energy 93 (2013) 267–279 273

Fig. 2. Map of annual average MPR for a generic crystalline silicon module in Europe. Calculated using data and methods described in Huld et al. (2010).
The locations shown are the ones for which the standard data sets will be defined (see Section 5 below).

concentrated in summer. MPR of c-Si is 0.92. This area 4.5. Region 5

corresponds roughly to ESRA Areas 2 and 3.
4.3. Region 3
North-West Spain, Central France, Southern
Germany, Czech Republic & Slovakia, Austria, Hungary,
most of Romania and Bulgaria. Climate is hotter and
more sunny than in Areas 1 and 2, but not yet mediterra-
nean. Despite the varying climate (wet and cloudy in the
West, drier and with cold winters in the East), the behav-
ior of the 3 PV technologies is very similar, at least on an
annual basis. MPR of c-Si is 0.91. This area corre-
sponds roughly to ESRA areas 4 and 5, but excluding
Northern Italy.
4.4. Region 4
Portugal, Central Spain, southern France and Corsica,
most of Italy, Croatia and Serbia, most of Greece. Temper-
atures are higher, and there is more radiation also in win-
ter. However, the effects of high temperature are
dominant. MPR of c-Si is 0.90. This area corresponds
roughly to ESRA area 8.
Southern Spain, Sicily, Southern Mediterranean coast,
some parts of Greece. The highest temperatures and the
highest irradiation (among the low-lying regions) in Eur-
ope. MPR of c-Si is 0.88–0.89. This corresponds to parts
of ESRA Area 8.
4.6. Region 6
Pre-alpine areas, altitude 600–1500 m. These areas are
found in the Alps, Appenines, Massif Central,
Carpathians, Pyrenees and the Balkan mountains.
Temperatures are lower than in the adjacent low-lying
areas, and the irradiation moderately higher. MPR of
c-Si is 0.92–0.94. This corresponds roughly to ESRA
Area 7.
4.7. Region 7
High mountain areas of the Alps, Pyrenees, Carpathians
and Balkans, above 1500 m altitude. Temperatures are
low and irradiation almost as high as in Southern Spain/
274 T. Huld et al. / Solar Energy 93 (2013) 267–279

Fig. 3. Map of annual average MPR for a CdTe module in Europe. Calculated using data and methods described in Huld et al. (2010). The locations
shown are the ones for which the standard data sets will be defined (see Section 5 below).

Northern Africa. Relative MPR of c-Si is 0.94–0.96. This
corresponds roughly to ESRA Area 9.
As mentioned above, CdTe is less sensitive to the partic-
ular climatic conditions found in high mountains. It would
therefore be expected that CdTe modules have similar per-
formance in Regions 3, 6 and 7.
For crystalline silicon the difference between
climatic zones in terms of MPR is about 1%. This means
that if more climatic zones are selected within the area
covered by Figs. 2 and 3, the difference in
estimated PV performance between zones would become
very small. The number of climatic zones is hence
sufficient.
This section established a limited number of perfor-
mance-relevant zones. While some (minor) differences in
the precise cut-off points are seen between two radically
different technologies, this does not detract from the cen-
tral values in these regions are representative for large
areas of land. The remaining challenge is now to find
limited data sets that can be passed on between different
service providers. This will be done in the following
sections.
5. Constructing data sets for the climatic regions
Having defined a set of climatic regions in Europe, it is
possible to construct PV-relevant data sets, as defined in
Section 4, for each of the regions. The data sets should con-
sist of a collection of instantaneous values of the necessary
parameters, for a period covering at least a full year in
order to resolve seasonal effects. Such a data set should
be produced for each of the climatic regions identified.
The data that were used for the analysis performed in
Huld et al. (2010) are proprietary and may not be released
without the consent of the copyright holders. This excludes
them from being used as a standard data set. It was there-
fore decided not to use these data directly, but to produce
synthetic time series of data in such a way that the statisti-
cal properties (mean values, standard deviation, cumulative
probability density) are maintained. Such a data set can
then be generated for the standard and archived without
any copyright issues.
The procedure for generating data sets for the climatic
regions is the following:
 T. Huld et al. / Solar Energy 93 (2013) 267–279 275

Table 1
Locations representing the seven different climatic zones.
Location Country Latitude Longitude Altitude (m) Region Optimum angle
0 00 0 00
Glasgow United Kingdom 55°52 12 N 4°25 48 W 8 1 37
Brussels Belgium 50°500 1300 N 4°220 300 E 70 2 34
Bratislava Slovakia 48°80 5400 N 17°60 2600 E 160 3 35
Marseille France 43°170 5400 N 5°220 5900 E 27 4 37
Almeria Spain 36°500 2400 N 2°280 400 W 40 5 33
Bormio Italy 46°280 300 N 10°220 4100 E 1219 6 37
Gutsch Switzerland 46°390 000 N 8°370 1200 E 2287 7 31

1. Identify for each of the climatic regions a location where
irradiance and ambient temperature data are available
in the database used to generate the maps of PV
performance.
2. For each of these locations, calculate monthly averages
of average daily global irradiation on a horizontal plane,
as well as monthly average temperatures.
3. Use the Meteonorm software (Remund et al., 2007),
which is a commercially available database, able to sup-
ply high quality data sets. Use monthly average values
as input to generate a synthetic time series of hourly val-
ues of irradiance and temperature covering one year.
This is done for each of the chosen locations.
4. Check that the hourly values from Meteonorm yield val-
ues of grel,year that are close to those obtained from the
original data sets.
The chosen locations are listed in Table 1.
For each of these locations, monthly values of global
horizontal irradiation and average temperature were
extracted from the database. The monthly average temper-
atures are found as the average of the daily minimum and
maximum temperatures measured during the month.
These averages are used as input to the METEONORM
software, which is able to generate hourly data sets of irra-
diance and temperature showing realistic stochastic
properties.
The data generation procedures are described by
Remund et al. (2007). The procedures for the generation
of irradiance data are basically derived from works of Agu-
iar and Collares-Pereira (1988, 1992) which had been devel-
oped further by Remund and coworkers and are described
in Remund et al. (1998) and Remund (2008a).
The data generation is performed in two steps. First, a
set of daily values is established., making use of universal
characteristics of the probability distribution of daily val-
ues of the clear-sky index for given values of the monthly
average as presented by Markov-Transition matrices. The
procedure for the generation of time series from given tran-
sition matrices described by Aguiar and Collares-Pereira
(1988). As second step, hourly time series are generated
on the basis of the daily averages. In this time scale, the sto-
chastic components of the data are modeled as a first order
autoregressive process (AR1) (Aguiar and Collares-Pereira,
1992).
The procedures for the generation of temperature sets
had been developed within the EU IST Project SoDa. It
is based on the thorough decomposition of the temperature
variability in its systematic and to stochastic components,
taking into account their coupling to the irradiance condi-
tions. For the time series generation, basically AR1 pro-
cesses are applied.
The total procedure for both, irradiance and tempera-
ture data has been validated by e.g. (Remund, 2008b). As
the procedures used are well documented in the Meteo-
norm handbook, they may in principle as well be applied
independently of the Meteonorm software together with
high quality data sets of monthly average irradiance and
temperature from other sources.
The data license for Meteonorm contains provisions for
the publication of synthetical data series to be used in
International standards. Thus, the data sets could be incor-
porated into international standards without requiring the
use of Meteonorm by the users of these standards.
6. Results
6.1. Variation in performance from year to year
The proposed standard data sets contain one full year of
solar radiation and temperature data for the chosen loca-
tions. It is therefore useful to determine how much the

Table 2
Average MPR grel and the standard deviation of yearly values of grel for each of the PV three technologies, calculated for six different locations
(coordinates given in Table 1).
Glasgow Brussels Bratislava Marseille Almeria Gutsch
c-Si grel 0.928 0.918 0.908 0.900 0.890 0.961
SD(grel) 0.0025 0.0024 0.0036 0.0031 0.0016 0.0057
CIGS grel 0.936 0.929 0.922 0.914 0.907 0.973
SD(grel) 0.0019 0.0025 0.0028 0.0024 0.014 0.0047
CdTe grel 1.040 1.031 1.022 1.009 1.002 1.028
SD(grel) 0.0018 0.0028 0.0023 0.0012 0.0008 0.0030
276 T. Huld et al. / Solar Energy 93 (2013) 267–279

yearly average PV performance varies between years. This
has been done for six different locations in Europe, taken to
be identical with the locations in Table 1, with the excep-
tion of Bormio for which no time series of temperature
was available.
The data used represent the period from 1996 to 2006
for a total of 11 years (for Bratislava the period 1998–
2006 was used) For each of the three different PV technol-
ogies considered in this report, the average MPR was cal-
culated for each of the 11 years. the standard deviation of
the MPR from these 11 values was calculated for each loca-
tion and for three PV technologies. Models for these three
technologies are taken from Huld et al. (2010). Table 2
shows the average MPR and standard deviation for each
location and technology.
The standard deviation of the MPR is very low, ranging
between 0.1% and 0.6%. This is in marked contrast to the
year-on-year variation of the irradiation itself where the
standard deviation ranges from about 1.5% in Almeria to
4% in Glasgow. This shows that for the purposes of gener-
ating a representative data set for assessing the perfor-
mance of a PV module under real conditions, a one-year
data set of hourly values of irradiance and temperature
should be sufficient.
6.2. Performance estimates from hourly data and
reconstructed time series
The hourly irradiance and temperature data described in
Section 5 have been used to calculate the performance of
various PV technologies as described in Huld et al.
(2010). (see Fig. 1 and 3 for a graphical representation of
the results). The performance is expressed as the annual
average MPR of the modules taking into account the
effects of irradiance and temperature.
The aim is to find a set of data based on non-proprietary
data. The same modeling procedure can be applied to other
time series. If the results are consistent with those gener-
ated using the proprietary data sets, it would be an indica-
tion that this is a suitable approach. Here a data set is
generated using METEONORM. This program has the
advantage that a representative year is constructed by gen-
erating synthetic data, which may be published as part of a
standard. The PV performance model is applied to the
annual time series of irradiance and temperature for each
of the three technologies for the locations given in Table 1.
The results of the calculation are shown in Table 3,
which shows values of annual average MPR for c-Si, CIGS
and CdTe, calculated using the original hourly data and
using the synthetically generated data.
The relative difference in the results from the two perfor-
mance estimates is generally low, i.e. below 1%, except in
the case of Bratislava and Brussels, where the estimate
for c-Si using the synthetic data is 1.0–1.25% higher than
that using the hourly data. In addition, it should be noted
that the estimates using synthetic data are consistently
higher than those using the measured data when estimating
the performance of c-Si and CIGS modules, whereas the
differences are very small when estimating the performance
of CdTe modules.
The differences in predictions should be seen in relation
to other sources of uncertainty and in relation to the over-
all magnitude of the effects of irradiance and temperature
on the performance of PV modules.
According to the study presented earlier (Huld et al.,
2010), the deviation in performance of c-Si PV modules
from the performance at STC amounts to a yearly average
of 5–11% depending on location (less deviation in cold or
high-altitude climates). For CIGS the values are slightly
lower, while for CdTe the deviation is in the range 4%
to +1% (negative numbers mean performance that is
higher than STC values). Angle-of-incidence effects add
another 2–4% deviation (Martin and Ruiz, 2001; Huld
et al., 2008). Thus it is seen that the discrepancies between
the estimates in Table 3 are nearly 10 times smaller than the
difference between performance in Northern and Southern
Europe or between c-Si and CdTe modules. More impor-
tantly, the trends in devices and locations are reproduced
accurately. This indicates that the use of the synthetic data
would not modify the ranking. A slight deviation is
expected in absolute terms, as discussed above, but in terms
of energy rating this consistency in the rating is crucial.
In the present study the PV performance has been mea-
sured in terms of the annual average MPR, grel,year . How-
ever, as shown in Eq. (5), given grel,year, the actual energy
output of a PV system is nearly proportional to the annual
in-plane irradiation. The differences in performance esti-
mates should therefore also be compared to the uncertainty

Table 3
Comparison between calculated PV performance (expressed as MPR) using hourly data and using synthetic data. For each technology and location, also
the MPR is shown.
c-Si CIGS CdTe
Location Hour Syn. Diff. (%) Hour Syn. Diff. (%) Hour Syn. Diff. (%)
Glasgow 0.926 0.932 0.74 0.936 0.943 0.70 1.040 1.037 0.28
Brussels 0.916 0.927 1.25 0.929 0.938 0.96 1.031 1.030 0.05
Bratislava 0.907 0.917 1.08 0.922 0.930 0.90 1.022 1.023 0.09
Marseille 0.907 0.904 0.34 0.914 0.920 0.61 1.009 1.008 0.13
Almeria 0.889 0.893 0.38 0.907 0.912 0.59 1.002 1.001 0.08
Bormio 0.934 0.943 0.96 0.945 0.953 0.84 1.020 1.022 0.19
Gutsch 0.961 0.970 0.92 0.973 0.980 0.74 1.028 1.028 0.05
 T. Huld et al. / Solar Energy 93 (2013) 267–279
Table 4
Calculated yearly average MPR grel,year for a number of BSRN stations.
Station Latitude Longitude
Bermuda 32.267N 64.667W
Boulder (US) 40.125N 105.237W
De Aar (ZA) 30.667S 23.993E
Florianopolis (BR) 27.533S 48.517W
Ilorin (NG) 8.533N 4.567E
Ny Ålesund (NO) 78.925N 11.95E
Sde Boqer (IL) 30.985N 34.782E
Solar Village (SA) 24.91N 46.41E
in the yearly irradiation since this uncertainty will cause a
similar uncertainty in the estimate of total energy produc-
tion from a PV system.
Šúri et al. (2008) have investigated six different solar
radiation products for Europe. It was found that there
were a number of regions in Europe where the different
solar irradiation estimates differ widely. In 22% of the ter-
ritory considered, the standard deviation of the irradiation
values are higher than 6% and in a few locations may reach
12%. This means that depending on the choice of data
source, a user may make PV energy output estimates that
can vary by 6% or more in many regions. This “user’s
uncertainty” is an order of magnitude larger than the dis-
crepancy between the performance estimates described
above.
7. Future extension to other climatic regions
The preceding analysis has focused on typical climatic
regions in Europe. While Europe spans a wide range of cli-
matic regions from nearly arctic to subtropical and cover-
ing both maritime and continental climates, there clearly
exist climatic regions that are not well represented if the
analysis is restricted to Europe. In the following, it will
not be attempted to exhaustively analyse all possible cli-
matic regions in the world. However, it is possible to get
an impression of the range of possible values of PV perfor-
mance by examining data from climatic regions not found
in Europe.
The Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN)3 is a
collaboration of organizations maintaining high-quality
ground measurement stations which include the measure-
ment of incoming solar radiation. Data from a number
of these stations were used to estimate the PV performance
in climatic regions for which there presumably are no
equivalents in Europe. For each of these stations the global
horizontal and diffuse horizontal irradiance, as well as the
ambient temperature were used to calculate the yearly aver-
age MPR for c-Si modules according to the method
described in Huld et al. (2010). The stations used and the
resulting estimated MPR are given in Table 4. For each sta-
tion, the inclination was chosen to be a reasonable guess at
the optimum angle.
3
The BSRN web site: www.bsrn.awi.de
277
Altitude (m) Inclination Year grel,year
8 35 1999 0.873
1577 35 2004 0.898
1287 5 2002 0.880
11 5 2002 0.863
350 10 1997 0.859
11 60 2002 0.957
500 30 2006 0.876
650 25 2000 0.855
The climatic regions of the stations in Table 4 range
from arctic (Ny Ålesund in Svalbard), to high-altitude tem-
perate (Boulder), humid subtropical (Bermuda and Floria-
nopolis) to semi-arid (De Aar) and desertic climates (Sde
Boqer and Solar Village). At less than 10° from the equa-
tor, Ilorin is situated in the tropics. It would be expected
that of these stations only Boulder might show a similar
PV performance as some of the climatic regions in Europe.
This expectation is borne out by the results of Table 4.
Comparing with Fig. 2 we see that in Europe the MPR
for c-Si modules ranges from 0.88 to 0.94 except in the high
mountains. In contrast to this, the arctic station in Table 4
shows a MPR estimate higher than any found at low alti-
tude in the European climatic regions, while all the other
stations in Table 4 except Boulder show a lower MPR than
found anywhere in Europe. Furthermore, it can be seen
that even though two stations may belong to a nominally
similar climate, there can still be significant differences in
PV performance. Thus, Bermuda and Florianopolis (both
humid subtropical) show a difference of about 1% while
Sede Boqer and Solar Village have a 2% difference, even
though both are in desert climates. This difference is mainly
due to the difference in daytime temperatures.
The results in Table 4 are not enough on their own to
establish a set of climatic zones for PV performance. The
results show that there are climatic regions that are not
covered by the data sets suggested for Europe, but they
do not say anything about the geographical extent of these
climatic regions. In order to suggest a comprehensive set of
yearly data series for PV energy rating it would be neces-
sary to calculate maps of PV performance covering all rel-
evant regions on the Earth. This in turn requires solar
radiation and air temperature data sets covering the whole
Earth with a reasonable spatial resolution (sufficient to dis-
tinguish lowlands from mountains). At present such data
sets are not freely available though this situation may
change in the next few years. However, wide areas could
be covered in a collaborative work with further groups to
characterize the earth according to photovoltaic zones.
A proposal for a work programme to establish standard
data sets for energy rating could look like the following:
1. Identify large-scale regions with similar values of MPR
on the basis of long term (10 years) data sets. For the
present study for Europe this was done using the work
278 T. Huld et al. / Solar Energy 93 (2013) 267–279
presented in Huld et al. (2010). For the rest of the world
similar maps of MPR would need to be produced. This
could be done by combining satellite-based radiation
data and temperature maps from one of the global
reanalysis projects, such as the ERA-Interim reanalysis
produced by the European Centre for Medium-Range
Weather Forecast (www.ecmwf.int). This would depend
on suitable satellite data being available. For Europe,
African and Western Asia such data sets are freely avail-
able, for instance from the CM-SAF collaboration
(www.cmsaf.eu), but for the rest of the world the situa-
tion is less clear, though some areas are covered, such as
for instance Australia, via the Australian Bureau of
Meteorology (www.bom.au). The low spatial resolution
of the reanalysis data sets means that the method is
applicable only to low-lying areas and fairly flat high
plateaus.
2. Once the regions have been identified, one-year time ser-
ies of solar radiation and ambient temperature should be
collected for at least one location in each of the regions.
Data of that year should give MPR values as close as
possible to the long-term mean MOR. If these data
are freely available, they can be published as part of
the standard data sets.
3. If the data cannot be published freely, use the data as
input to generate synthetic time series as described in
this paper, which may then be distributed freely.
8. Conclusions
Any energy rating requires a standardized data set as
integral part of its definition. This data set is difficult to
agree upon internationally, especially because of people
wanting it be ‘their’ environment and thus it is near impos-
sible to agree on a given site. It is shown that climatic zones
are entirely sufficient at giving relevant information. Focus-
ing on these climatic zones will overcome several issues
seen in the past with manageability of the data involved
and it also has the potential to generate user acceptance.
This is due to the possibility to generate a data set that is
representative for large areas.
The data range is also suggested to be one full year for a
given site as it was shown that this gives good agreement
with various modeling approaches (less than one year
leaves out seasonal variations, but the resulting MPR is
nearly identical for different years). Based on this, it is pos-
sible to identify suitable sites which are representative for a
climatic zone. These annual data-sets are much more repre-
sentative than any other data set. The use of publically
available, long term data sets allows to generate an envi-
ronment for a representative inter-comparison of different
photovoltaic technologies.
Data that are part of an international standard must of
course be publicly available. This creates a problem in that
it is not yet clear if publicly available data of solar radia-
tion and temperature are available for all relevant climatic
zones in the world. To overcome this problem it has been
demonstrated in this paper, that for the purposes of an
energy rating standard it is also possible to use synthetic
data, such as those generated by the Meteonorm software,
whose license permits the output to be incorporated in
standards.
With the definition of an Energy rating standard which
contains the PV module performance surface, the energy
rating calculation, the standard environmental data sets,
and the translation algorithms for different irradiance
and temperature conditions we will have developed a stan-
dard which is sufficiently specific to be used (i.e. practical)
while containing the necessary tools to be generally
applicable.
This work is currently limited to Europe, and a preli-
minary analysis shows that there are regions in the world
that are not well represented by the climatic regions iden-
tified for Europe. However, applying this methodology to
similar data sets from different geographic regions, which
may be reproduced from satellite data, will make it possi-
ble to identify a limited number of climatic zones and
thus a limited amount of data sets that need to be derived
for an international standard. Given that these data sets
are generic and don’t need to match the specific environ-
ment perfectly to fulfill the purpose of an energy rating,
this is a significant advance on the suggestion of standard
days. One could also extend the study purely based on
synthetic data and use this as an input to world-wide
mapping, provided some links with reality are
demonstrated.
Acknowledgements
This work was partially funded by the PERFOR-
MANCE project of the European Commission under con-
tract number SES-019718 within FP6. Ralph Gottschalg’s
contribution was funded by the RCUK-Energy Pro-
gramme Grant No. EP/H040331/1.
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