An Experimental Platform for Quantifying the Impact of Snow Accumulation on Pyranometer Measurements for PV Applications in Eastern Canada

The measurement of irradiance is essential for evaluating weather conditions and its various applications in fields such as hydrology, energy, and particularly for the estimation of photovoltaic system performance. In snowy environments, the reliability of irradiance measurements performed by pyranometers is even more critical, as it can be affected by snow accumulation on the domes of the measurement instruments. In this paper, we present the experimental platform of the 3IT Institute, located in Quebec in eastern region of Canada, used to quantify the impact of accumulated snow on four pyranometers from EKO: three unheated MS-60S models and one heated MS-80SH model, positioned differently around a photovoltaic power plant. The total irradiance (kWh/m<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup>) measured per day by the four pyranometers was analyzed over 17 days from December 2024 to January 2025, while a laser-based snow depth sensor (SDMS-40) simultaneously measured the amount of snow accumulated on the ground. For snow depth values ranging from 0 to 14 cm, an average measurement discrepancy ranging from 11.8% to 73.2% was quantified by comparing the measurements made by the different pyranometers to the heated one, used as the reference value. The details of the experimentation and the measurement results presented in this paper could help in making decisions regarding technological choices and the positioning of instruments for irradiance measurement in snowy environments.