Solar energy has been known as a successful alternative energy source, however it requires a large area to build power generation facilities compared to other energy sources such as nuclear power. Weather factors such as rainy weather or night time impact on solar power generation because of lack of insolation and sunshine. In addition, solar power generation is vulnerable to external elements such as changes in temperature and fine dust. There are four seasons in the Republic of Korea hereby variations of temperature, insolation and sunshine are broad. Currently factors that cause find dust are continuously flowing in to Korea from abroad. In order to build a solar power plant, a large area is required for a limited domestic land hereby selecting the optimal location for the plant that maximizes the efficiency of power generation is necessary. Therefore, this research analyze the optimal site for solar power generation plant by implementing analytic hierarchy process based on weather factors such as fine dust. In order to extract weather factors that impact on solar power generation, this work conducts a case study which includes a correlation analysis between weather information and power generation.

This paper presents a development process of a forecast and monitoring system for a photovoltaic (PV) solar plant. PV solar system is one of sustainable resource of energy. So, Korean government encourages businessmen to build a PV solar plant. Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) system is one of encouraging policies. Most RPS businessmen use monitoring system for a PV solar plant and they need an accurate forecast of power generation for business purpose. Therefore we propose an estimating algorithm of power for a PV solar plant using weather forecast. Proposed algorithm is implemented in a forecast and monitoring system and it works better than existing estimating methods.