Editorial: Forecasting solar radiation, photovoltaic power and thermal energy production applications

Forecasting energy production of photovoltaic systems is a hot Research Topic nowadays, when energy prices are one of the highest in history. The forecast of the photovoltaic power production can be on the long term from 1 month to 1 year, on medium-term from 1 week to 1 month, on short-term from 6 h to 72 h, and on very short-term from 15 min to 6 h.

It is crucial to forecast solar radiation and photovoltaic power production so as to control and manage the electrical stand-alone systems, smartgrids and grids, to ensure power demand can be met (Kumar et al., 2020). The forecast can be made using the following methods: numerical weather prediction models (NWP), physical techniques, linear statistical models, and machine learning techniques (Ramirez-Vergara et al., 2021).

The Research Topic aims to cover some of the forecast problems. It has eight accepted papers, that cover the following Research Topic: methods to maximize the output power of the photovoltaic system, solar radiation forecast, and power generation prediction.