Estimation of Monthly Average Daily Global Solar Radiation Using Meteorological-Based Models in Adrar, Algeria

Abstract

This paper presents a systematic approach to empirical model selection for the global solar radiation (GSR) estimation considering the Algerian town of Adrar. The approach is based on various meteorological variables. The accuracy of the selected model is validated using GSR measurements in the considered location (i.e. Adrar) through eight statistical indicators. Long-term six-parameter data measurements are collected. The collected measurements are divided into two subsets; the first subset (from year 2009 to 2013) is used for the modeling purpose, while the second subset (years 2014–2016) is used for the model evaluation purpose. The results show that the statistical performance of the traditional Angström formula for GSR estimation can be significantly improved by including the effect of the maximum and minimum temperatures in the GSR empirical models. In addition, the results show that excluding the cloud cover from the empirical models significantly reduces the statistical performance of these models.