A guideline to solar forecasting research practice: Reproducible, operational, probabilistic or physically-based, ensemble, and skill (ROPES)

Over the past decade, significant progress in solar forecasting has been made. Nevertheless, there are concerns about duplication, long-term value, and reproducibility; this is referred to as the “solar forecasting bubble.” There is an urgent need to reconcile and improve the current solar forecasting research practice. This discussion paper proposes a so-called “ROPES” guideline that describes the desirable characteristics of future solar forecasting studies. In short, ROPES stands for reproducible, operational, probabilistic and/or physically based, ensemble, and skill. This set of characteristics is intended to facilitate comparison, comprehension, and communication within the solar forecasting field and speed up its development. Compliance with ROPES is evaluated on 79 solar forecasting references published during 2017 January to 2018 July in 6 Elsevier energy journals. Although most current papers fall short of complying with ROPES, evidence suggests that a consensus is forming.