Dr. Hugh Cutcher
June 25, 2025
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Solar forecasting across Europe and Africa is set for a major upgrade as the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG), developed by EUMETSAT, is now live and delivering data to Solcast historical, live and forecast models.
The new satellite, Meteosat-12, positioned at 0° longitude alongside its predecessor from the Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) series, improves on spatial and temporal resolution, expands spectral imaging capabilities, and adds new tools to enhance atmospheric monitoring. These improvements have already been integrated and tested, already enhancing forecast accuracy for assets in Europe and Africa.
Why MTG data improves solar forecasting
Improved image frequency for enhanced forecast accuracy
One key upgrade from MTG is the improvement in temporal resolution. Standard full-disk imagery is now available every 10 minutes, improving on 15-minute intervals from the previous generation. This increase in image cadence enables more accurate tracking of rapidly evolving cloud systems, which is especially beneficial for nowcasting and short-term solar irradiance forecasts. In future, MTG’s rapid scan service will deliver updates over Europe every 2.5 minutes—twice as fast as MSG’s 5-minute scans— a great source of new data for future live and nowcast irradiance estimations.
Higher resolution data for better cloud tracking
Compared to the currently operational MSG satellites, MTG introduces sharper and more detailed, frequent imagery. MTG brings a spatial resolution in general, but a significant upgrade over Africa. Over Europe, this spatial resolution change is less of an upgrade, as both the legacy MSG data and new MTG imagery already offer high-resolution inputs.
These improvements support improved cloud detection, especially in regions previously underserved by lower resolution satellite coverage.
More spectral bands for better atmospheric insights
The MTG satellite also features 16 imaging channels, up from 13 on MSG, improving coverage of visible and near-infrared wavelengths that are critical for cloud identification and tracking. With these improvements, the MTG satellite is set to enhance solar forecasts through higher-quality real-time and short-term cloud identification. Sharper, more rapid imagery improves cloud forecasts, which improves overall accuracy of our irradiance models and forecasts. Faster dissemination of satellite images, ensures real-time data reaches forecasting systems with minimal delays, getting forecasts and live data closer to real-time latency.
How is Solcast using MTG satellite data
Preliminary performance results
The Solcast Data Science team conducted tests during the integration of MTG data into Solcast models. Initial checks using six weeks of surface measurements in Germany and the Netherlands suggest that GHI forecasts derived from MTG data are outperforming MSG-derived estimates.
The mean absolute error (MAE%) in estimated actuals dropped from 26% to 23%, reflecting an ~11% relative improvement. While this analysis is based on a limited data set and more validation is ongoing, the early results are already promising.
See the difference when you use Solcast forecast data
The operational rollout of MTG marks a significant leap forward in solar forecasting capabilities, bringing improved accuracy, detail, and speed to data across Europe, Africa, and surrounding regions. As Solcast continues to integrate MTG data into both nowcasting and long-term forecasting models, customers will benefit from faster updates, more detailed observations, and higher forecast accuracy — particularly in regions where historical resolution was limited.
If you're already using Solcast data for forecasting, grid operations, or asset performance monitoring, reach out to our team to learn more about what's changed. But if you're exploring Solcast for the first time, get in touch or evaluate our enhanced forecast data via the Solcast API.
