Abstract
Concentrator Photovoltaic (CPV) systems only work with the Direct Normal Irradiance (DNI), so a knowledge of DNI data is required for the design and evaluation of these kinds of systems. DNI is not always measured at ground meteorological stations due to equipment costs. In recent years, several spatial databases that estimate DNI from satellite data have been developed. These databases are a very useful tool for CPV applications. However, the databases present uncertainty and provide different values of DNI. This lack of DNI data and the uncertainty of available data contrast with the availability of reliable global horizontal irradiation data, which is easy to find or measure. In this paper, a simple procedure for estimating DNI from global horizontal irradiation is presented. It does not try to improve the existing methods, but meets the basic requirements for the analysis of CPV systems. The method can be easily implemented in a spreadsheet or in computer programs in renewable energy and its accuracy is similar than that of the existing databases.
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