Solar energy continues to grow in the United States, but its relative unpredictability remains a hurdle in deploying it on the grid. Now a research team is working to create detailed 36-hour forecasts of incoming energy from the sun.

The three-year effort, led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), is funded by a $4.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. NCAR is working with universities, utilities and other energy companies, as well as commercial forecast providers, to predict with far more accuracy and specificity when cloud cover could reduce the amount of energy coming from the sun.

More than half of all states in the U.S. have required that utilities increase their