Modeling Solar Radiation at the Earth's Surface (eBook)

Foreword 5
Preface 7
Acknowledgments 19
Contents 21
List of Contributors 31
Solar Radiation Measurement: Progress in Radiometry for Improved Modeling 34
1 Introduction 34
2 Solar Radiation Measurement Fundamentals 34
3 Components of Solar Radiation in the Atmosphere 36
4 Instrumentation: Solar Radiometer 38
5 Radiometric Reference and Calibration Methods 41
6 Uncertainty and Characterization of Solar Radiometers 45
7 Optimal Radiometry and Correction Techniques 50
8 Measurement Networks and Data Quality Assessment 51
9 Conclusions 58
References 58
Fractal Classification of Typical Meteorological Days from Global Solar Irradiance: Application to Five Sites of Different Climates 62
1 Introduction 62
2 Solar Radiation 63
3 Fractal Dimension Estimation 65
4 Measuring the Fractal Dimension of Signals 69
5 Classification of the Solar Irradiances to Typical Days 73
6 Conclusions 85
References 85
Modelling the Statistical Properties of Solar Radiation and Proposal of a Technique Based on Boltzmann Statistics 88
1 Introduction 88
2 Physical and Statistical Modelling of Solar Radiation 89
3 Stochastic Processes. Stationarity 90
4 The "k" Indices 92
5 Density and Cumulative Distribution Functions 93
6 A Research Survey on the Statistical Behaviour of Solar Radiation Components 95
7 Modelling the Instantaneous Distributions Conditioned by the Optical Air Mass 103
8 Conditioned Distributions k 118
9 Conclusions and FutureWork 121
References 122
A Method for Determining the Solar Global and Defining the Diffuse and Beam Irradiation on a Clear Day 126
1 Introduction 126
2 Solar Global Irradiation on a Clear Day 127
3 Solar Horizontal Diffuse and Beam Irradiation on Clear Days 136
4 Analysis of Solar Irradiation Distribution Types 141
5 Conclusions 144
References 145
Recent Advances in the Relations between Bright Sunshine Hours and Solar Irradiation 148
1 Introduction 148
2 Measurements and Data Availability 149
3 Angstr om-Prescott Relation and its Physical Significance 152
4 Physical Modeling and Some Recent Models 155
5 Model Validation and Comparison 169
6 Discussions, Conclusions and Future Prospect 171
References 174
Solar Irradiation Estimation Methods from Sunshine and Cloud Cover Data 178
1 Introduction 178
2 Basic Equations for Sunshine Duration and Extraterrestrial Solar Irradiation 179
3 Measured Global Solar Irradiation and Sunshine Duration Properties 181
4 Angström Equation 182
5 Enhancing Statistical Meaning of Angström Equation with Two Methodologies 186
6 Unrestricted Methodology (UM) 192
7 An Alternative Formulation to Angström Equation 198
8 Conclusions 204
References 205
Solar Irradiation via Air Temperature Data 208
1 Introduction 208
2 Prediction from Air Temperature and Cloud Amount 209
3 Models for Daily Solar Irradiation from Daily Extremes of Air Temperature 213
4 Fuzzy Models 215
5 Accuracy of Solar Irradiation Models Based on Air Temperature Data 222
6 Conclusions 224
References 224
Models of Diffuse Solar Fraction 226
1 Introduction 226
2 Defining the Problem 228
3 Constructing a Model of the Diffuse Fraction 230
4 Results for Various Locations 237
5 Validation of the Model 238
6 Identifying Outliers 240
7 Conclusion for the Single Predictor Variable Model 242
8 Identification of Further Explanatory Variables 243
9 The Daily Solar Profile 249
10 Algorithms 250
11 Conclusions 251
References 251
Estimation of Surface Solar Radiation with Artificial Neural Networks 254
1 Neural Networks: An Overview 254
2 Biological Neurons 255
3 Artificial Neurons 256
4 Artificial Neural Networks 257
5 The Perceptron 259
6 Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) 261
7 Building Neural Networks 264
8 A Survey of Neural Network Modeling Approaches 274
9 Conclusions 283
References 287
Dynamic Behavior of Solar Radiation 290
1 Introduction 290
2 Averaged Data Sets 293
3 Processing Data Sets Expected to be Stationary 297
4 Typical Regimes of Solar Radiation 303
5 Minute-Long Averages of Global Irradiance 305
6 Conclusions 312
Acknowledgement 312
References 313
Time Series Modelling of Solar Radiation 316
1 Introduction 316
2 Characteristics of Climatic Variables 317
3 ARMA Modelling 323
4 The Daily Model 326
5 Synthetic Generation 332
6 The Hourly Model 335
7 Model Validation 337
8 Daily Profiling 340
9 Algorithms 342
10 Conclusions 343
References 344
A new Procedure to Generate Solar Radiation Time Series from Machine Learning Theory 346
1 Introduction 346
2 Probabilistic Finite Automata 347
3 Generating Solar Irradiation Time Series Using Probabilistic Finite Automata 351
4 Predicting New Series from PFA 354
5 Software 357
6 Conclusions 357
References 358
Use of Sunshine Number for Solar Irradiance Time Series Generation 360
1 Introduction 360
2 Meteorological and Actinometric Databases 361
3 Sunshine Number 363
4 Simple Clear Sky Model 371
5 Solar Irradiance Computation on Cloudy Sky 375
6 Solar Radiation Data Generation 383
7 Conclusions 385
References 387
The Meteorological Radiation Model (MRM): Advancements and Applications 390
1 Introduction 390
2 Stages of the MRM Development 391
3 Results and Discussion 408
4 Inter-Comparison of Precipitable Water Expressions 420
5 Conclusions 422
Accompanying Material 423
References 423
Chain of Algorithms to Compute Hourly Radiation Data on Inclined Planes used in Meteonorm 426
1 Introduction 426
2 Chain of Algorithms 427
3 Clear Sky Radiation 429
4 Monthly Means of Global Radiation 429
5 Daily Values of Global Radiation 430
6 Hourly Values of Global Radiation 433
7 Conclusions 441
References 441
Modelling UV -B Irradiance in Canada 444
1 Introduction 444
2 The Model 445
3 Measurements 450
4 Model Estimates of Spectral Irradiance 450
5 Conclusions 456
References 457
Angular Distribution of Sky Diffuse Radiance and Luminance 460
1 Introduction 460
2 Definitions 461
3 Models of Angular Distribution of Diffuse Radiance and Luminance 462
4 Equipment for Observing the Radiance/Luminance Distribution from the Sky Dome 476
References 479
Solar Radiation Derived from Satellite Images 482
1 Introduction 482
2 Fundamentals 483
3 Geostationary Meteorological Satellite Images 485
4 Satellite-Based Models for Deriving Solar Radiation 486
5 Assessment of Solar Radiation Derived from Satellite 490
6 Availability of Data on the Web 491
7 Conclusions 492
Information on the CD-ROM 492
References 493
Generation of Solar Radiation Maps from Long- Term Satellite Data 496
1 Introduction 496
2 Description of the Method 497
3 Results and Discussions 507
4 Conclusions 509
References 510
Validation and Ranking Methodologies for Solar Radiation Models 512
1 Introduction 512
2 Types of Models 512
3 Model Validation Principles 514
4 Model Sensitivity to Input Errors and Error Analysis 515
5 Model Validation and Performance Assessment 518
6 Some Performance Assessment Results 527
7 Conclusions 536
References 537
Index 544