  Long-term hourly time series representing the PV generation in European
countries have been obtained and made available under open license. For every
country, four different PV configurations, i.e. rooftop, optimum tilt,
tracking, and delta have been investigated. These are shown to have a strong
influence in the hourly difference between electricity demand and PV
generation. To obtain PV time series, irradiance from CFSR reanalysis dataset
is converted into electricity generation and aggregated at country level. Prior
to conversion, reanalysis irradiance is bias corrected using satellite-based
SARAH dataset and a globally-applicable methodology. Moreover, a novel
procedure is proposed to infer the orientation and inclination angles
representative for PV panels based on the historical PV output throughout the
days around summer and winter solstices. A key strength of the methodology is
that it doesn't rely on historical PV output data. Consequently, it can be
applied in places with no existing knowledge of PV performance.

Physics and Society