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In a new weekly update for pv magazine , Solcast, a DNV company, reports that the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) satellite is now beginning operational testing. The new satellite will deliver sharper, more detailed and more frequent images, providing a significant boost to solar irradiance estimates.
Solar prediction across Europe and Africa is set for a major upgrade as the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) satellite begins operational testing, according to analysis of early operational data by Solcast’s Data Science team. The new satellite, positioned at 0° longitude alongside its predecessor in the Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) series, offers unprecedented improvements in spatial and temporal resolution, increased spectral imaging capabilities and new tools to enhance atmospheric monitoring.
Compared to currently operational MSG satellites, MTG introduces sharper, more detailed frequent imagery, providing a significant boost to solar irradiance estimates. Standard visible imagery now offers 1 km spatial resolution for hemisphere-wide surveys, up from 3 km for MSG. High-resolution visible imagery improves to 0.5 km in selected regions, doubling the level of detail. Temporal resolution has also increased, with new full-disk images captured every 10 minutes, improving on MSG’s 15-minute intervals.
In Europe, the MTG Rapid Scan service will provide updates every 2.5 minutes – twice as fast as MSG’s 5-minute scans – allowing for more accurate live, real-time irradiance estimates.
MTG also features 16 imaging channels, compared to MSG’s 13, covering visible and infrared wavelengths. These additional channels allow for better distinctions between clouds, snow, dust and sand in the atmosphere – key factors influencing irradiance. Improved spectral data allows for more precise identification of cloud types and heights, while also making it easier to track atmospheric dust storms. In addition, MTG’s new lightning imaging instrument will provide critical insight into severe weather patterns, offering another layer of data relevant to solar generation forecasting.
With these improvements, the MTG satellite will enhance solar forecasts through higher-quality short-term and real-time cloud identification. Sharper and faster imagery improves cloud spread forecasts, while more accurate atmospheric data feeds numerical weather prediction (NWP) models, providing more accurate long-term forecasts. Faster dissemination of satellite imagery, now divided into 40 slots, ensures that real-time data reaches forecast systems with minimal delays, allowing for more up-to-date irradiance estimates.
Satellite irradiance continues to offer several advantages over ground-based methods. Pyranometers require expensive maintenance, calibration, and installation, while satellite imagery provides consistent irradiance coverage at much lower marginal costs. In addition, satellites offer near-global spatial coverage and allow for retrospective analysis, providing historical irradiance data without the need for physical instruments on site at the time.
The operational launch of Meteosat Third Generation represents a major leap forward in solar prediction capabilities, bringing greater accuracy, detail and speed to data across Europe, Africa and surrounding regions.
Solcast produces these figures by tracking clouds and aerosols at 1-2 km resolution on a global scale, using satellite data and proprietary AI/ML algorithms . This data is used to drive irradiance models, allowing Solcast to calculate irradiance at high resolution, with a typical bias of less than 2%, and also cloud tracking forecasts. This data is used by over 300 companies managing over 150 GW of solar assets worldwide. |
