Solcast: Validation of a satellite-derived solar irradiance dataset

Solcast (https://solcast.com/) is a global solar forecasting and historical solar irradiance data company. Their datasets are important to the scientific community as substantial amounts of historical data is made freely available to researchers. Solcast's hourly averages and sub-hourly instantaneous (10/15-min) global horizontal irradiance (GHI) estimates are validated at 48 BSRN ground stations that contain 1,014,792 valid hourly average measurements and 2,932,976 valid instantaneous measurements. The data are validated globally and across four climates under clear-sky, clouded-sky and all-sky periods, repeated for 'all zenith angles' (theta_z < 85 degrees) and high-sun zenith angles (theta_z < 50 degrees). A site-by-site validation is also performed for both hourly and instantaneous datasets. All validations and recommendations are impartial and unbiased. The hourly dataset validated similarly for both zenith angle scenarios, which is remarkable due to the added complexities at low-sun angles. In terms of rRMSE, the global performances of hourly GHI under clear-sky, clouded-sky and all-sky were 3.4%, 25.6% and 16.9%, respectively. With each ground station equally weighted, the overall bias was 0.33%, and standard deviation of biases at 1.7%. Solcast's instantaneous GHI product validations were at times similar to the hourly validations though is naturally harder with increasing temporal resolution. The historical datasets from Solcast are found to be of good quality, thus, they are recommended for use by researchers. Identified areas for improvement herein will guide future developments of Solcast's methodology.