A New Model for Estimating the Diffuse Fraction of Solar Irradiance for Photovoltaic System Simulations

Martin Hofmann and Gunther Seckmeyer
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Martin Hofmann: Valentin Software GmbH, Stralauer Platz 34, 10243 Berlin, Germany
Gunther Seckmeyer: Leibniz Universität Hannover, Institute for Meteorology and Climatology, Herrenhäuser Straße 2, 30419 Hannover, Germany

Energies, 2017, vol. 10, issue 2, 1-21

Abstract: We present a new model for the calculation of the diffuse fraction of the global solar irradiance for solar system simulations. The importance of an accurate estimation of the horizontal diffuse irradiance is highlighted by findings that an inaccurately calculated diffuse irradiance can lead to significant over- or underestimations in the annual energy yield of a photovoltaic (PV) system by as much as 8%. Our model utilizes a time series of global irradiance in one-minute resolution and geographical information as input. The model is validated by measurement data of 28 geographically and climatologically diverse locations worldwide with one year of one-minute data each, taken from the Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN). We show that on average the mean absolute deviation of the modelled and the measured diffuse irradiance is reduced from about 12% to about 6% compared to three reference models. The maximum deviation is less than 20%. In more than 80% of the test cases, the deviation is smaller 10%. The root mean squared error ( RMSE ) of the calculated diffuse fractions is reduced by about 18%.

Keywords: diffuse; diffuse fraction; irradiance; model; photovoltaic (PV); simulation; irradiation; Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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