  As photovoltaic power is expanding rapidly worldwide, it is imperative to
assess its promise under future climate scenarios. While a great deal of
research has been devoted to trends of mean solar radiation, less attention has
been paid to its intermittent character, a key challenge when compounded with
uncertainties related to climate variability. Using both satellite data and
climate model outputs, here we characterize solar radiation intermittency to
assess future photovoltaic reliability. We find that the relation between the
future power supply and long-term trends of mean solar radiation is highly
nonlinear, thus making power reliability more sensitive to the fluctuations of
mean solar radiation in regions where insolation is the highest. Our results
highlight how reliability analysis must account simultaneously for the mean and
intermittency of solar inputs when assessing the impacts of climate change on
photovoltaics.
