Possibilities to Estimate Daily Solar Radiation on 2-Axis Tracking Plane Using a Model Based on Temperature Amplitude

Dariusz Czekalski, Paweł Obstawski and Tomasz Bakoń
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Dariusz Czekalski: Institute of Mechanical Engineering, Department of Fundamental Engineering and Energetic, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, 02-787 Warsaw, Poland
Paweł Obstawski: Institute of Mechanical Engineering, Department of Fundamental Engineering and Energetic, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, 02-787 Warsaw, Poland
Tomasz Bakoń: Institute of Mechanical Engineering, Department of Fundamental Engineering and Energetic, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, 02-787 Warsaw, Poland

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 23, 1-19

Abstract: Significant errors may occur when estimating daily solar radiation in central Europe using empirical models based on air temperature (especially in the winter months). The first goal of this article is to investigate to what extent it is possible to increase the accuracy of the Hargreaves and Samani model, by using the calibration dedicated for each month. We also corrected the temperature amplitudes by narrowing the daily intervals from which the minimum and maximum values were taken. The second goal of this article is to compare the precision of the daily solar radiation estimation on the horizontal plane and on the 2-axis tracking plane. The database comprises the series of parallel measurements on both planes over a period of 10 years. We considered two procedures, direct and indirect, for the 2-axis tracking plane. The second procedure, dubbed “the first estimate horizontal than calculate tracking” is based on the strong relationship between daily solar radiations on both planes. The direct procedure allows for a slightly more accurate estimation. The estimation of daily radiation on the 2-axis tracking plane reflects the measured values worse than estimation on the horizontal plane. We discovered that the increase of estimation errors on the 2-axis tracking plane, compared to the horizontal one, is proportional to the increase in the coefficient of variability of the daily solar radiations.

Keywords: daily solar radiation; Hargreaves-Samani equation; monthly calibration; horizontal and 2-axis tracking planes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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