Solar radiation on south‐facing inclined surfaces under different climatic zones in India

Abstract

In this work, solar radiation availability has been estimated for south‐facing inclined surfaces in India. Five different climatic zones prescribed by Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) for India have been considered. A comparison of optimum tilt angles and corresponding incident solar radiation for representative locations under different climatic zones, that is, Srinagar (cold), Delhi (composite), Jodhpur (hot and dry), Mumbai (warm and humid), and Bangalore (Temperate) has been established. Gains in the availability of incident solar radiation in comparison with a horizontal surface observed for Jodhpur and Bangalore were found to be maximum (15.77%) and minimum (7.57%), respectively, on monthly optimum tilt angle. A loss of 5.74% for cold climate, 7.49% for composite climate, 6.16% for hot and dry climate, 4.30% for warm and humid climate, and 4.39% for temperate climate were estimated with surface tilted at annual optimum tilt in comparison with a surface at monthly optimum tilt angle. A linear relationship was observed between annual optimum tilt angles and locations latitude as βopt(annual) = 0.671 ϕ + 9.087 with R2 = 0.9984. It was concluded that climatic conditions can considerably affect the availability of incident solar radiation under different climatic zones. ‘ 2018 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 38:e13050, 2019