A Review on Plane to Array Solar Radiation Transposition Models

Abstract

The knowledge of solar radiation for a specific location is the basis for knowing the potential and thus the beginning of the process of designing and economic and technical evaluation of the solar system, whether it is flat or concentrated, fixed or tracking, thermal or electric. Because solar radiation measurements are not available except in meteorological stations, which of course do not cover all places on the earth, the only approach to calculate the solar radiation incident on an inclined surface is by using plane – to – array transposition models for all solar radiation components: direct beam solar radiation, sky-diffuse solar radiation, and ground-reflected solar radiation. This article presents a detailed presentation of the 22 most widely used sky-diffuse transposition models in the scientific community, commercial software, and database banks specialized in solar energy. The comparison includes four different statistical indicators: RMSE, MBE, PAD and t-stat are used to identify the most promising transposition model.