SGRESmart Grid and Renewable Energy2151-481XScientific Research Publishing10.4236/sgre.2013.44041SGRE-33935ArticlesEarth&Environmental Sciences Engineering Comparison of Different Models for Estimation of Global Solar Radiation in Jharkhand (India) Region umariNamrata1*S.P. Sharma2*S.B. L. Saksena1*Department of Electrical Engineering, NIT Jamshedpur, Jamshedpur, IndiaDepartment of Mechanical Engineering, NIT Jamshedpur, Jamshedpur, India.* E-mail:nirmala_bimal@yahoo.com(UN);nirmala_bimal@yahoo.com(SPS);nirmala_bimal@yahoo.com(SBLS);040720130404348352January 30th, 2013March 5th, 213 March 14th, 2013© Copyright 2014 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. 2014This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In this paper with the help of different empirical models we have estimated the value of monthly average global solar irradiation for Ranchi (23.3500°N, 85.3300°E), a tropical location. The values of monthly average global solar radiation are calculated using the regression constants in the models (both linear and quadratic) suggested by: Angstrom Prescott, Rietveld, Ogleman, Akinoglu, Glover, Gopinathan and Sangeeta et al. All the regression models are investigated, validated and compared. On comparison it was observed that the quadratic models are overall more accurate for calculating the Global Solar Radiation for the Jharkhand region, but the Angstrom-Prescott model as well shows better variance for most of the months. The calculated data from these models is compared with the data provided by MNRE [1]. GSR values are important parameters for designing any Solar Power Systems as the whole solar power generation is directly proportional to the amount of global solar radiation. The calculated and measured data are simulated using MATLAB.

GSR; Sunshine Duration; Predicted Solar Radiation; Daily Global Radiation; Jharkhand1. Introduction

Solar energy technologies offer a clean, renewable and domestic energy source and are essential components of a sustainable energy future. The amount of global solar radiation and its temporal distribution are the primary variable for the use of solar energy. Development of a solar energy research program must always start with a study of solar radiation data at a site or region of interest [1-20]. Unfortunately, the measurement of these parameters is made only in a few meteorological stations, especially in developing countries, for both historical and economical reasons. For places where it is not directly measured, solar radiation can be estimated by using models and empirical correlations. Therefore, there have been numerous investigations on the examination of the relationship between global radiation and sunshine duration for which data are available in a greater number of meteorological stations [2]. However, the computational complexity and associated time and input data requirements discourage many researchers and users from basing their calculations of energy, irradiation on models which have strong links to the fundamental radiative equations rather they are encouraged by simplicity and expediency of calculations using empirically based methods [3]. It can be observed from

Figure 1 shows that the solar energy potential of India is one of the highest in the world as the tropic of cancer passes through it [4]. But the true potential is yet to be utilized because of lack of data. It is worth pointing that

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