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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Atmosphere and Climate
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1528355
This article is part of the Research Topic Concentrated Solar Power Photovoltaic Systems: Prospect Development and Challenges View all articles

An in-depth analysis of two common methodologies used to derive hourly solar radiation values from daily ones: pros and cons

Provisionally accepted
Harry D. Kambezidis Harry D. Kambezidis *
  • National Observatory of Athens, Athens, Greece

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Solar radiation comprises the primary renewable source of energy on Earth and has so been exploited in the last 20 years. Despite this, solar radiation measurements are scarce worldwide, thus giving space to modelling. Nevertheless, modelling solar radiation at an hourly level is nowadays required for a short-term output forecast from solar installations. The daily global solar radiation decomposition models are one category of solar models that convert daily solar radiation values to hourly ones. The Collares-Pereira & Rabl (CPR) and Collares-Repeira, Rabl & Gueymard (CPRG) models have shown to provide a better performance than others at individual sites without exhibiting any sign of universality on the other hand. The current study looks at this gap. In this regard, twelve sites are selected around the world. To estimate hourly values, the CPR and CPRG models are applied to daily solar radiation estimates for each site in particular years. Hourly data sets that are openly accessible provide the daily values. Additionally, daily and monthly values are derived from the estimated and observed hourly values. The hourly, daily, and monthly scales are used to compare the two models' performances. The CPR model outperforms the CPRG model across all sites and time scales. A universal coefficient of correction is used to further enhance the CPR performance, bringing the CPRestimated solar radiation very close to the observed one.

    Keywords: solar radiation, Decomposition models, Hourly values, Daily values, monthly values, Universal applicability

    Received: 14 Nov 2024; Accepted: 08 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Kambezidis. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Harry D. Kambezidis, National Observatory of Athens, Athens, Greece

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