Prediction of diffuse solar radiation using satellite data

ABSTRACT

In the project of the solar systems, the values of the solar radiation of a region must be known. The global solar radiation measurements are performed by the Turkish Meteorological Service in Turkey, while the diffuse solar radiation measurements are unavailable. In this study, some new models for predicting the monthly average daily diffuse solar radiation on a horizontal surface for Erzincan, Turkey are developed using satellite data. The evaluation of the models is carried out with the statistical analysis methods of mean bias error (MBE), root mean square error (RMSE) and correlation coefficient (r). The results are proved that the correlation equations obtained in here can be used to forecast diffuse solar radiation reasonably well.

KEYWORDS:

• Clearness index
• diffuse solar radiation
• model
• satellite data
• solar energy

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Turkish State Meteorological Service for providing the global solar radiation and the NASA Langley Research Center Atmospheric Science Data Center Surface meteorological and Solar Energy web portal for providing the diffuse and global solar radiation data.