3.5.5. Weather Forecast

The optimization engine requires weather forecast data to operate. The SPO weather forecast module predicts solar radiation using data from external weather forecast services. Hourly forecasts of outdoor dry bulb temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and cloud cover for the duration of the control horizon (e.g., 6 h into the future) are required by the controller. A solar forecast model has also been implemented in this module to calculate the global solar radiation [82]. The direct and diffuse solar radiation are further computed based on the predicted global solar radiation [83]. Based on the predicted solar radiation, the plane-of-array solar radiation can be easily calculated and used as inputs for building and photovoltaic (PV) system models.
