A simple correlation to estimate global solar irradiation on a horizontal surface using METEOSAT satellite images

Authors: BÜLENT AKSOY, SELMİN ENER RÜŞEN, BÜLENT GÜLTEKİN AKINOĞLU

Abstract: A simple quadratic correlation, which is obtained from a universal Angström-type quadratic relation, between daily horizontal global solar irradiation and satellite images is presented. The performance of this correlation is seen to be in the acceptable accuracy limits for daily estimates. In addition, by using data from 5 locations in Turkey, a linear correlation between the bright sunshine hours and satellite based cloud index is derived. Utilizing these 2 correlations, one can easily obtain spatial daily solar irradiation and sunshine duration maps for the regions with similar latitudes and climates of locations of interest.

Keywords: Bright sunshine duration; solar radiation; METEOSAT images; cloud index; Angström model

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