Photovoltaic Performance and Degradation Time Series Data

The NREL PVDAQ is a large-scale time-series database containing system metadata and performance data from experimental and commercial photovoltaic sites. It is used for ongoing performance and degradation analysis, with some datasets including environmental sensor readings like irradiance and temperature. The data is provided by the Department of Energy and was last updated in July 2025.

Use Cases

• Analyze PV performance degradation trends over time using system metadata and power output data.
• Model the effect of environmental factors like irradiance, temperature, wind speed, and precipitation on PV system output.
• Compare performance characteristics between experimental and commercial PV sites using the available system metadata.
• Investigate common performance-impacting elements such as soiling across different system datasets.

Strengths

• Data originates from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), a leading authority in energy research.
• Includes data from a variety of sources, encompassing both experimental and commercial photovoltaic sites.
• Some system datasets contain multi-faceted environmental sensor data covering irradiance, temperatures, wind speeds, and precipitation.
• The dataset was updated in July 2025, indicating recent maintenance.

Limitations

• The specific number of rows, columns, and total data size is unknown, making it difficult to assess scale.
• Data is organized as a series of files per system, which may require significant effort to consolidate for analysis.
• The description notes that only 'some' systems include environmental sensor data, indicating incomplete coverage of those features.

Provenance

Source

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) via the Department of Energy.

Collection Method

Data acquisition from a variety of experimental PV sites and commercial public PV sites.

Freshness

Last updated on 2025-07-31.