Estimating global solar radiation using artificial neural network and air temperature data in a semi-arid environment

Ali Rahimikhoob

Renewable Energy, 2010, vol. 35, issue 9, 2131-2135

Abstract: Global solar radiation (GSR) data are desirable for many areas of research and applications in various engineering fields. However, GSR is not as readily available as air temperature data. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are effective tools to model nonlinear systems and require fewer inputs. The objective of this study was to test an artificial neural network (ANN) for estimating the global solar radiation (GSR) as a function of air temperature data in a semi-arid environment. The ANNs (multilayer perceptron type) were trained to estimate GSR as a function of the maximum and minimum air temperature and extraterrestrial radiation. The data used in the network training were obtained from a historical series (1994–2001) of daily climatic data collected in weather station of Ahwaz located in Khuzestan plain in the southwest of Iran. The empirical Hargreaves and Samani equation (HS) is also considered for the comparison. The HS equation calibrated by applying the same data used for neural network training. Two historical series (2002–2003) were utilized to test the network and for comparison between the ANN and calibrated HS method. The study demonstrated that modelling of daily GSR through the use of the ANN technique gave better estimates than the HS equation. RMSE and R2 for the comparison between observed and estimated GSR for the tested data using the proposed ANN model are 2.534 MJ m−2 day−1 and 0.889 respectively.

Keywords: Global solar radiation; Artificial neural network; Hargreaves and Samani; Iran (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148110000467
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:35:y:2010:i:9:p:2131-2135

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2010.01.029

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().