General cloud cover modifier for clear sky solar radiation models

Abstract

Worldwide lack of comprehensive measured solar radiation resource data for solar system design is well known. Several simple clear sky solar radiation models for computing hourly direct, diffuse and global hemispherical solar radiation have been developed over the past 25 years. The simple model of Richard Bird, Iqbal's parameterization C, and Gueymard's REST model are popular for estimating maximum hourly solar resources. We describe a simple polynomial in cloud cover (octa) modifier for these models that produces realistic time series of hourly solar radiation data representative of naturally occurring solar radiation conditions under all sky conditions. Surface cloud cover observations (Integrated Surface Hourly Data) from the National Climatic Data Center are the only additional (hourly) input data to model total hemispherical solar radiation under all sky conditions. Performance was evaluated using three years of hourly solar radiation data from 31 sites in the 1961-1990 National Solar Radiation Data Base. Mean bias errors range from - 10% to -20%, and are clear sky model dependant. Root mean square error of about 40%, are also dependent upon the particular model used and the uncertainty in the specific clear sky model inputs and lack of information on cloud type and spatial distributions.