The paper introduces SolCloudLLM, a large language model–based framework that fuses sky‑image patches with time‑series data through bidirectional multimodal fusion for short‑term solar forecasting. Experiments on the SIRTA and SKIPP'D datasets show that SolCloudLLM outperforms existing baselines, achieving up to a 25.4% reduction in mean squared error, especially under cloudy conditions and in few‑shot scenarios.
By Ken Chen, Maneesha Perera, Wei Wang, Sachith Seneviratne, Hansani Weeratunge, Saman Halgamuge
arXiv:2411. 10921v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Accurate forecasts of distributed solar generation are necessary to maintain grid stability amid the increased uptake of distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) systems.
By Maneesha Perera, Julian De Hoog, Kasun Bandara, Hansani Weeratunge, Saman Halgamuge
SolarBench is an open global benchmark for image-based solar nowcasting that consolidates over six million sky and satellite images from 11 sites across a decade, paired with irradiance, PV output, and atmospheric data. The benchmark includes a toolbox for reproducible data access, processing, model development, and evaluation. Using SolarBench, the authors benchmark representative models, uncover a gap between average forecasting accuracy and the capture of rapid solar fluctuations, quantify predictability across cloud regimes, and demonstrate data‑efficient adaptation to new PV systems.
By Yuhao Nie, Stephen Campbell, Quentin Paletta, Liwenbo Zhang, Tao Jing, Samer Chaaraoui, Jonathan Giezendanner, Andea Scott, Tao Sun, Cong Feng, Max Aragon, Jacques Camier, Adam Jensen, Florian Kotthoff, Yuexing Yang, Yang Ming, Mengying Li, Stefanie Meilinger, Yupeng Wu, Adam Brandt, Sherrie Wang
arXiv:2608. 11254v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Accurate solar irradiance forecasting is essential for the reliable integration of photovoltaic power into modern electricity grids.
By Yann Fabel, Bijan Nouri, Milon Miah, Niklas Blum, Luis F. Zarzalejo, Julia Kowalski, Robert Pitz-Paal
arXiv:2607. 28093v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Accurate Surface Solar Irradiance (SSI) estimation is increasingly important for photovoltaic energy monitoring and forecasting.
By Gordei Prib\~otkin, Piia Post, Velle Toll
The paper presents a hierarchical ensemble for short‑term photovoltaic power forecasting that fuses temporal neural models, historical analogs, state climatology, and gradient‑boosted trees with horizon‑specific convex weights. Solar geometry and numerical weather forecasts provide expected generation conditions, while a calibration step corrects recent bias using historical forecast errors. Evaluated on PVDAQ and GEFCom2014 data, the ensemble reduces mean absolute error by up to 6% compared to strong individual models, though its advantage varies with dataset and horizon.
By Xu Yuqing, Zhou Liguo, Sun Ze, Yu Lei, Jiang Mingming
arXiv:2608.24715v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: A vast amount of optical satellite data is being transmitted to Earth-based servers every day, and more than half of this data is affected by haze or...
By Angelos Georgakis, Valentina Kanaki, Giorgos Giannopoulos, Stella Girtsou, Ioannis Kontogiorgakis, Charalampos Kontoes, Kostas Philippopoulos
The study presents a spatially aware deep learning framework that retrieves all‑sky tropospheric temperature and humidity profiles from the Meteosat Third Generation Flexible Combined Imager (FCI) without relying on numerical weather prediction background fields. Using a Residual U‑Net trained on 14 months of collocated FCI observations and CERRA reanalysis data, the model achieves temperature biases below 0.4 K and relative humidity standard deviations between 12–20 %, with modest performance degradation under cloud cover. Ablation and feature‑sensitivity analyses confirm that incorporating spatial context across all 16 FCI channels, including visible and near‑infrared bands, improves retrieval accuracy, especially beneath cloud tops.
By Alejandro Salgueiro, Johannes Rausch, Julie Th\'er\`ese Villinger, Angela Meyer
Engineering use of AI forecasting models requires not only high nominal accuracy but also predictable behavior under uncertain inputs. In photovoltaic (PV) forecasting, this requirement is especially challenging because numerical weather prediction (NWP) errors are temporally correlated, state dependent, and physically coupled across variables.
The Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) Flexible Combined Imager (FCI) offers new opportunities for tropospheric temperature and humidity profiling, at higher spatio-temporal resolutions and expanded spec...
arXiv:2607. 12954v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Engineering use of AI forecasting models requires not only high nominal accuracy but also predictable behavior under uncertain inputs.
By Dandan Chen, Yan Zhao, Xuepeng Chen
The paper introduces CloudCast v2, a machine‑learning model that forecasts 12‑hour cloud‑cover from satellite‑derived initial conditions. Trained first on the Copernicus European Regional Reanalysis to learn cloud‑evolution dynamics, it is then adapted to real satellite data using conditional flow matching, a generative technique that conditions noise on observed cloud fields and NWP inputs. CloudCast v2 achieves a 10 % reduction in mean absolute error compared to its predecessor and surpasses it in spatial skill after 3–6 hours, extending useful forecasting beyond the typical 1–3‑hour nowcasting window while preserving satellite‑level spatial detail.
By Mikko Partio, Leila Hieta, Ossi Laine