PV Data-Acquisition Project Mission
The PVDAQ project’s mission is to provide streamlined access to public photovoltaic (PV) site and production data. This user-friendly portal offers researchers the opportunity to browse, visualize, and download PV production data. By fostering accessibility, the portal enhances collaboration within the research community, enabling scientists and practitioners to share and utilize information-rich PV datasets.
Accessing the Data
There are various ways you can access the data hosted in PVDAQ:
- Via the MAP tab on the top of this page, which shows the locations on a map and offers filtering options for identifying sites of interest.
- Directly via the OEDI data lake page https://data.openei.org/submissions/4568.
- Through the API - instructions available in (https://github.com/NREL/pvdaq_access)
For bulk downloads of some of the heavy datasets, options 2 and 3 require a steady internet connection and time. Options to download directly from AWS will be released in an upcoming Webinar.
Data Taxonomy
The Photovoltaic field array (PVDAQ) data is composed of time-series, raw performance data taken through a variety of sensors attached to a number of PV arrays across the country. The types of systems represented in the dataset range from small research systems hosted at academic institutions to larger publicly-shared systems on municipal buildings. Data is typically measured at high frequency (<1 minute) intervals, but averaged prior to file storage, but the frequency of measurement and reporting can vary between systems.
The PVDAQ data is partitioned by system_id, year, month and day. Most data is stored at 15 minute increments in ISO 8601 date and time.
NREL PIX 60071
Metadata is provided in json format, and includes data tables for the system, site, mount, metrics, meters, inverters and other instruments in the site.
More information on the taxonomy can be seen in https://github.com/openEDI/documentation/blob/main/pvdaq.md
Citing PVDAQ Data
If you use any of the PVDAQ provided datasets, including the Solar Data Bounty Prize data, please include a citation to the dataset and its DOI:
RIS Format:
NREL. (2021). Photovoltaic Data Acquisition (PVDAQ) Public Datasets [data set]. Retrieved from https://dx.doi.org/10.25984/1846021.
MLA Format:
Deline, Chris, Perry, Kirsten, Deceglie, Michael, Muller, Matthew, Sekulic, William, and Jordan, Dirk. Photovoltaic Data Acquisition (PVDAQ) Public Datasets. United States: N.p., 21 Dec, 2021. Web. doi: 10.25984/1846021</a>.
PV Fleet Performance Data Initiative
The PV Fleet Performance Data Initiative (PV Fleet) is an associated project managed by NREL. In the PV Fleet project, partner raw data is shared under NDA agreement, and in exchange, partners receive customized performance reports. Periodically the initiative publishes anonymized, fleet-wide performance reports on performance, degradation rates and loss factors.
As of Dec. 2023, PV Fleet data includes 8.5GW of commercial PV fleet data in the US, with more than 38 Billion lines of data and 2500 separate locations. Data in the PV Fleets Initiative is protected by confidentiality agreements, and not shared via PVDAQ unless authorized by the data owner. Data contributors who would like to publicly share their data should contact the PVDAQ team.
For more information visit the website at: https://www.nrel.gov/pv/fleet-performance-data-initiative.html
American-Made Solar Data Bounty Prize
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) funded the American-Made Solar Data Bounty Prize, a two-stage, $1.4 million prize designed to increase the accessibility of high-quality time series datasets for photovoltaic (PV) systems. These types of datasets can be used to build, train, and optimize models designed for PV system simulation, which can in turn provide more accurate performance estimates and better system designs. Improving the accuracy of PV system modeling lowers the risk of developing and operating those assets, which can attract more capital for deployment of PV power plants.
More information on the Solar Data Prize is available here: https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/american-made-solar-data-bounty-prize
PV systems shared publicly from the DOE Solar Data Bounty Prize are identified as such on the PVDAQ website map.
