Development and analysis of a new solar radiation Atlas for Argentina from ground based measurements and CERES_SYN1deg data

F. CARMONA; F. ORTE; R. RIVAS; E. WOLFRAM; E. KRUSE

The Egyptian Journal of Remote Sensing and Space Sciences

ELSVIER

Año: 2018

1110-9823

Nowadays, being able to quantify the global solar radiation at surface in Argentina is crucial for the development of projects related with solar energy, calculation of evapotranspiration, eco-sustainability architecture projects, among other environmental issues. In recent years, several models have been developed to estimate the solar energy resources utilizing different techniques, i.e. satellite images, kriging, or Artificial Neural Networks. The use of satellite data allows a better spatial representation, being of great important on areas with low density of terrain measurements. In the present paper, we use the CERES_SYN1deg product to develop a new Global Solar Radiation Atlas for Argentina. In this study, we developed the maps of annual and monthly mean daily global solar radiation using CERES_SYN1deg product data between 2000 and 2016. With the aim to validate the CERES_SYN1deg data of global solar radiation, these were compared with ground based measurements in the time overlap of both instruments, in four monitoring sites of the SAVER-Net project and an additional site established in Tandil, which belongs to the Remote Sensing Group of IHLLA. The developed maps show the spatial and temporal variation of global solar radiation in Argentina. Comparisons with ground based pyranometers present relative differences of around 3% at monthly scale for all sites, while the biases can be neglected. Therefore, it is possible to conclude that the developed maps could be very useful for different technical and scientific purposes, and the comparison with ground based data demonstrates the reliability of CERES_SYN1deg product used.