Patent Document ID: 20140207437
Application ID: 14223926
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. A computer-implemented method for inferring operational specifications of a fleet of photovoltaic power generation systems, comprising the steps of: obtaining historical power production data measured over an earlier time period for and also locations of a plurality of photovoltaic power generation plants comprised in a photovoltaic power generation fleet; obtaining historical measured irradiance data over the earlier time period for the locations; defining a plurality of hypothetical photovoltaic plant configurations that each comprise a power rating and operational features hypothesized for the plants; obtaining a configuration for each of the plants, comprising: simulating power output production data for each of the hypothetical photovoltaic plant configurations based on a normalized photovoltaic power generation plant using the historical measured irradiance data for the earlier time period; deriving a simulated photovoltaic system rating as a function of the historical power production data for that plant and the simulated power output production data; scaling the simulated power output production data by the simulated photovoltaic system rating over each point in the earlier time period; and inferring the configuration of that plant from the hypothetical photovoltaic plant configuration that exhibits a minimal error between the scaled simulated power output production data and the historical power production data for that plant; aggregating the inferred configurations of the plants into a configuration of the photovoltaic power generation fleet, wherein the steps are performed on a suitably-programmed computer.