Estimation of Monthly Average Global Solar Radiation using Sunshine Hours

In this thesis, the Angstrom-Prescott coefficients are determined by using Artificial Bee Colony algorithm and regression model in order to calculate the monthly average solar radiation for the particular region. In developing countries, the global solar radiation and its components are not available for all locations due to which there are a requirement of using different models for the estimation of global solar radiation that use climatological parameters of the locations. There are various empirical models are used to calculate the solar radiation but in this paper Angstrom-Prescott model is used to calculate the solar radiation of the particular region or area which provide the sunshine hours of that region. With the observation data of global solar radiation and sunshine-hours from one observation station, the Angstrom-Prescott formula is trained to determine all necessary parameters, by which the monthly average solar radiation data of the other weather stations with only sunshine-hour observation data can be derived. Several distribution maps of the global solar radiation are then generated using interpolation models in GIS, based on which spatial and temporal variation pattern of the monthly global solar radiation are discussed.