A solar radiation model for photovoltaic and solar thermal power exploitation

Abstract

A numerical model for generating solar radiation maps to be used for the evaluation of different power generation strategies is proposed. The solar radiation model is implemented taking into account the terrain surface with the use of 2-D adaptive meshes of triangles, which are made using a refinement/derefinement procedure in accordance with the variations of terrain surface, orography and albedo. The chosen methodology defines the terrain characteristics with a minimum number of points so that computational cost for a given accuracy is reduced. As we will use the model to find the ideal location to get the maximum power generation, taking into account the effect of shadows for each time step is needed. The solar radiation is first computed for clear-sky conditions, considering the different components of radiation, that is, beam, diffuse and reflected radiations. The real-sky radiation is computed daily starting from the results of clear-sky radiation, in terms of the clear-sky index. The maps of clear-sky index are obtained from a spatial interpolation of observational data that are available for each day at several points of the zone under consideration. Finally, the solar radiation maps of a month are calculated from the daily results. One of the aims of this model is the analysis of the generation possibilities from both, photovoltaic and solar thermal power and the suitability of different locations in Gran Canaria Island (Canary Islands - Spain).