Analysis of sunshine hours data and estimation of global solar radiation for Mychew Tabia Smret station, Northern Ethiopia

Abstract

The energy sector is strategically important and plays a major role in a nation’s development policies. Climate change, global warming, and rising energy costs all have contributed to a rising demand for renewable energy in recent years. As a result, in recent decades, concerns regarding solar energy, one of the most significant renewable energy sources, have grown in number. This study investigated the empirical solar correlations for the Ethiopian province of Mychew Tabia Smret, which was created in Ethiopia and a few other nations. By identifying the closest model based on collected data, the statistical compatibility of the solar radiation models under inspection was examined. In addition to specific to the region climate data, an Angstroms model forecast had been developed at the Mychew Tabia Smret location to estimate worldwide sun radiation. The corresponding values are 0.9824, 0.9658, 0.9215, 0.9125, and 0.9056, respectively. The available mean monthly solar energy distribution was determined to be 192 kWh/m2, while the mean annual solar energy was estimated as around 2339.2 kWh/m2. The estimated statistical parameters such as R2, MBE, RMSE, MPE, MAPE, t-sat, and e% method was addressed for the porpuse of testing the models’ acceptance. The understanding reveals that the crosschecked quadratic model is the most preferable model for Mychew Tabia Smret's solar radiation distribution, with a higher R2 value of 0.9823 compared to linear, logarithmic, exponential power, and exponential models. The quadratic model has a coefficient of determination of 98.23% R2 statistic, making it best alternative for predicting and estimating solar radiation distributions.