Abstract
Global solar radiation is the most important factor to determine the energy generation potential of photovoltaic (PV) plants. In Argentina only a small number of ground measured data of global solar radiation exists. Researchers and PV developers have to use statistical methods or satellite imagery to handle this lack of information and provide an estimation of global solar radiation for a particular location. In this paper global solar radiation data sources for the Lerma valley are explored in order to assess which data set is best suitable for future studies of photovoltaic energy generation potential at the best possible spatial and temporal resolution. We evaluate global solar radiation from the reanalysis data set provided by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and the Meteosat second generation derived data set provided by Land Surface Analysis Satellite Applications Facility (LSA-SAF). These are compared with each other, with data generated using statistical methods and with data from a pyranometer. The results show that the data from LSA-SAF fit best to the ground measurements. This together with a high spatial and temporal resolution makes the LSA-SAF data a satisfactory alternative to compensate the lack of global solar radiation data available for the study area.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 57-68 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | Renewable Energy |
| Volume | 99 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Dec 2016 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The study was carried out with data kindly provided by Silvina Belmonte and German Salazar from INENCO, Salta, Argentina. The authors would like to thank Martin Altamirano for pre-processing the ground measured data, Christian Blöchl for the support in the validation of the high resolution time series, Raphaela Pagany for preparing Fig. 1 and, Anja Klisch, Patrick Reidelstürz, Nilsa Sarmiento Babieri and Johannes Schmidt for their valuable comments. The study was mainly conducted in the project “Spatial Energy Manager” funded by the program “IngenieurNachwuchs” of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) , Germany (Grant number 03FH00712 ). The study was motivated by the project “Regional Energy Planning with Renewable Energy Sources: Data, methodologies, models and participation processes in the Argentinian and German cases” (REP-ArGe), grant numbers 01DN14008 (Germany) and AL/13/07 (Argentina), financed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Argentinian Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation (MinCyt) .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier Ltd
Funding
The study was carried out with data kindly provided by Silvina Belmonte and German Salazar from INENCO, Salta, Argentina. The authors would like to thank Martin Altamirano for pre-processing the ground measured data, Christian Blöchl for the support in the validation of the high resolution time series, Raphaela Pagany for preparing Fig. 1 and, Anja Klisch, Patrick Reidelstürz, Nilsa Sarmiento Babieri and Johannes Schmidt for their valuable comments. The study was mainly conducted in the project “Spatial Energy Manager” funded by the program “IngenieurNachwuchs” of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) , Germany (Grant number 03FH00712 ). The study was motivated by the project “Regional Energy Planning with Renewable Energy Sources: Data, methodologies, models and participation processes in the Argentinian and German cases” (REP-ArGe), grant numbers 01DN14008 (Germany) and AL/13/07 (Argentina), financed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Argentinian Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation (MinCyt) .
Keywords
- ECMWF
- Global solar radiation
- LSA-SAF
- Photovoltaic
- Reanalysis data
- Satellite imagery
