Mapping Monthly Average Global Solar Radiation over Iraq Using GIS and Heliosat Model

Hussain Z Ali,Ali M Al-Salihi,Ahmed K Al-Abodee

doi:10.24297/ijct.v15i5.1635

Abstract

The mapping of global solar radiation is important in designing of solar energy system and renewable energy applications, also the global solar radiation estimation and mapping will facilitate engineers and architect purposes and applications. In present paper measured and estimated global solar radiation data was employed. The estimation of global radiation data can give results with acceptable accuracy to establish solar maps of monthly radiation using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software. Simple Kriging interpolation was used to derive radiation maps over Iraq. Â Different models were employed, namely Spherical, Circular, and Gaussian. Solar radiation data for the years 1985,1990,1995,2000 and 2005 were used for the production of solar radiation maps over Iraq. On average, Iraq receives (5000) kWh/m2 of global solar radiation in year 2005. The highest global solar radiation is estimated at 6790kWh/m2 in September while the lowest is 1660 kWh/m2in December. Cross validation was used to find the best model by comparing the error criteria, namely MPE, RMS, MSPE, RMSS, and ASE. It was found the Spherical model gives best results according to the cross validation error criteria.Mapping Monthly Average Global Solar Radiation over Iraq Using GIS and Heliosat Model

Highlights

Energy is one of the most important factors for economic growth and human development
Studying the solar radiation that reaches the Earth surface is very interesting in ecological and economic terms, since the Sun provides 99.8% of the energy used for all natural processes
The summery of Heliosat-2 can be explained by the following steps; recording the ground albedo maps for each month, computing the cloud index, calculating the clear sky index, and estimating the daily global solar radiation

Summary

Introduction

Energy is one of the most important factors for economic growth and human development. Renewable energy is a key element for any sustainable solution. To understand the current trend of the renewable energy, it is important to analyze the spatial variation of resources and their deployment. The Sun transforms about 4 million tons of its mass into energy. For the earth, this enormous quantity represents an energy focus of 1.779×1011 MW that is directly or indirectly used by the biosphere. Studying the solar radiation that reaches the Earth surface is very interesting in ecological and economic terms, since the Sun provides 99.8% of the energy used for all natural processes. In the field of Earth sciences, mapping solar radiation is important for two reasons. It is a variable that directly influences biological processes such as photoperiods (flowering and growing seasons, etc.) or biochemical reactions [1]

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Conclusion