Smoke from 2020 United States wildfires responsible for substantial solar energy forecast errors

Abstract

The 2020 wildfire season (May through December) in the United States was exceptionally active, with the National Interagency Fire Center reporting over 10 million acres ( > 40 000 km2) burned. During the September 2020 wildfire events, large concentrations of smoke particulates were emitted into the atmosphere. As a result, smoke was responsible for ∼10%–30% reduction in solar power production during peak hours as recorded by the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) sites. In this study, we focus on a 9 d period in September when wildfire smoke had a profound impact on solar energy production. During the smoke episodes, hour-ahead forecasts utilized by CAISO did not include the effects of smoke and therefore overestimated the expected power production by ∼10%–50%. Here we use multiple observational networks and a numerical weather prediction (NWP) model to show that the wildfire events of 2020 had a significantly detrimental influence on solar energy production due to high aerosol loading. We find that including the contribution of biomass burning particles greatly improves the day-ahead solar energy bias forecast of both global horizontal irradiance and direct normal irradiance by nearly ∼50%. Our results suggest that a more comprehensive treatment of aerosols, including biomass burning aerosols, in NWP models may be an important consideration for energy grid balancing, in addition to solar resource assessment, as solar power reliance increases.

Characterizing the Role of Moisture and Smoke on the 2021 Santa Coloma de Queralt Pyroconvective Event Using WRF‐Fire

“…Another influential factor in the studied event is the effect of the terrain on the local wind circulation and fire spread. These aspects of the problem will be considered by running a real case WRF-Fire scenario with activating aerosol-radiation interactions, following the recent WRF-Solar developments that now include the impact of BC as outlined in Juliano et al (2022) in future work. Finally, a comprehensive comparison with field measurements of aerosol concentrations and dynamical and microphysical properties of pyroconvective clouds is necessary to constrain the model parameters better.…”

“…Another successful example of incorporating the radiative impact of OC and BC in WRF‐Solar for the record‐breaking 2020 wildfire season was presented by Juliano et al. (2022). WRF‐Solar is an augmentation of WRF for forecasting solar power irradiance that includes radiation, clouds, and aerosol interactions.…”

“…Recent numerical experiments with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model show that adjustment of the aerosol characteristics based on OC and BC data from NASA Goddard Earth Observing System version 5 reanalysis (GEOS-5; Rienecker et al, 2008) in the Thompson-Eidhammer aerosol-aware microphysics (Thompson & Eidhammer, 2014, hereafter TE14) scheme lead to improved simulation of key variables such as cloud cover, air temperature, and incident radiation at the surface when compared with satellite and ground observations (Conrick et al, 2021). Another successful example of incorporating the radiative impact of OC and BC in WRF-Solar for the record-breaking 2020 wildfire season was presented by Juliano et al (2022). WRF-Solar is an augmentation of WRF for forecasting solar power irradiance that includes radiation, clouds, and aerosol interactions.…”

Corn response to long‐term seasonal weather stressors: A review

“…In comparison to cloud cover, wildfire smoke has been shown to reduce total solar radiation by 10%–30% over a 4‐day period in California during peak smoke production periods (Juliano et al., 2022). In addition, Hemes et al.…”

Toward a Better Understanding of Wildfire Behavior in the Wildland‐Urban Interface: A Case Study of the 2021 Marshall Fire

“…Wildfire activity in the United States (U.S.) and across the globe has increased markedly over the last several decades (e.g., Balch et al., 2017; Dennison et al., 2014; Iglesias et al., 2022; Westerling et al., 2006). In the U.S., many of the recent wildfire seasons have involved long and intense burning periods, leading to the loss of life and property, as well as poor air quality (e.g., Buchholz et al., 2022) and reductions in solar energy production as a result of smoke generation (e.g., T. W. Juliano, Jiménez, et al., 2022). Global climate models suggest that the recent trend of more large‐scale fire events will continue and even increase in the future (e.g., Abatzoglou & Williams, 2016; Yoon et al., 2015; Yue et al., 2013).…”