Assessment of Hourly Solar Direct Normal Irradiance using Eight Broadband Clear Sky Models: Study of Four Moroccan Arid Sites

Abderrahim EL-ABIDI, Said YADIR, Mohammadi BENHMIDA, Hamza BOUSSETA, Wail El BAZI, Abdelilah FAKE, Kamal BARAKA

Abstract


This paper presents a statistical comparative study of eight important parametric broadband clear sky models, against Meteosat-derived data, to estimate solar hourly direct normal irradiance (DNI) for four Moroccan arid zone sites. To achieve this aim, four sites well spread across this climatic zone were selected, and four references days were chosen. The statistical parameters such as relative mean bias error (rMBE), the relative root mean square error (rRMSE), and the determination coefficient are calculated. According to these results, the Bird model produces acceptable estimates with 62.5% of good results of rMBE ranging between 0 and 6%; 25% of average results of rRMSE ranging between 11% and 14%, and 62.5% of good results of ranging between 0.90 and 0.96. The comparison of both means of DNI, calculated and measured for a given site and day of reference, using the paired t-test, states that for a level of significance of 1%, the Bird model and the REST2 model give in the quarter of the studied cases conforming means of hourly DNI. For a level of significance of 0.1%, the Bird model is more proficient and gives conforming means in almost half of the cases studied. Despite all these performances displayed by the Bird Model, it remains average and does not reach the required level in some sites at certain times. The elaboration of a new simpler DNI estimation model giving higher performances for this zone of high solar potential is of great interest.


Keywords


clear sky, hourly direct normal irradiance, arid climate, modeling, solar energy, statistical comparison.

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References


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DOI (PDF): https://doi.org/10.20508/ijrer.v9i2.9402.g7682

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