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Solar Platform

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2020

 

 

The quantification of the aerosol influence on solar resources is the main topic of the seminar.

 

 

2019

 

 

The seminar was focused on studying the ability of the clear-sky solar irradiance models to accurately partition the global solar irradiance (GHI) into beam and diffuse components. Diverging from the traditional perspective, the diffuse fraction was assessed as an appropriate quantifier for the fractional part of GHI estimated by a clear-sky solar irradiance model as being diffuse. Acting as a quantifier, the diffuse fraction has the merit of isolating the uncertainty induced by aerosols in estimating the diffuse solar irradiance.  

 

The main results are collected in a manuscript submitted to Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics:  

 

Blaga R, Calinoiu D, Stefu N, Boata R, Sabadus A, Paulescu E, Pop N, Mares O, Bojin S, Paulescu M (2020) Quantification of the aerosol-induced errors in solar irradiance modeling. Under review

 

 

2017 - 2018

 

 

 

The seminar was focused on enhancing the accuracy of clear-sky solar irradiance models, by a better capturing the aerosol influence on the atmospheric transmittance. A key result is SIMv.2 model, an upgraded version of our parametric clear-sky solar irradiance model (Energy Conversion and Management 70 (2013) 76-82), aiming to improve the estimates accuracy in arid environment.

 

Calinoiu D, Stefu N, Boata R, Blaga R, Pop N, Paulescu E, Sabadus A, Paulescu M (2018) Parametric modeling: A simple and versatile route to solar irradiance. Energy Conversion and Management 164, 175-187.

ABSTRACT. A clear-sky solar irradiance model is certainly a basic tool in the estimation of solar resources. With all the abundance of such models, there is plenty of room for searching a clear-sky solar irradiance model with general applicability, i.e. to be able to provide high-accurate estimates in most places around the world. This paper reports an upgraded version (further referred to as SIMv.2) of our parametric clear-sky solar irradiance model SIMv.1, aiming to improve the accuracy of estimates in arid environment. The new elements of SIMv.2, such as new equations for aerosol absorption and downward fraction, have been introduced targeting a better capture of the peculiarities of the solar radiation extinction by aerosols. Overall, the results of testing SIMv.2 at twelve stations located in regions with temperate, arid and tropical climate show that SIMv.2 performs much better than SIMv.1, an improvement in nRMSE of 37.1% for global solar irradiance and of 24.7% for the diffuse component being noticed. The comparison with other fourteen clear-sky solar irradiance models at five stations located in arid climate places SIMv.2 in the class of the best performing models. The limitation of the SIMv.2 performance in extreme weather conditions is discussed in two cases.

 

 

2015-2016

 

The relationship between solar irradiance and sunshine duration was investigated from the very beginning of solar radiation measurements. Many studies were devoted to this topic aiming to include the complex influence of clouds on solar irradiation into equations. The main topic of the seminar was focused on the famous Ångström-Prescott equation, which was investigated from different perspectives: (1) physical basis (mathematical derivation, physical meaning), (2) accuracy of the empirical models and (3) sensitivity to various astronomical and geographical factors; (4) Intrinsic limitations and the possibility to find a formula with general applicability.

 

 

Paulescu M, Stefu N, Calinoiu D, Paulescu E, Pop N, Boata R, Mares O (2016) Ångström – Prescott equation: Physical basis, empirical models and sensitivity analysis. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 62: 495-506.

 

ABSTRACT. In this paper the Ångström-Prescott equation is reviewed from three different perspectives: (1) the physical basis, (2) the accuracy of the empirical models and (3) the sensitivity to various astronomical and geographical factors. A mathematical derivation of the Ångström-Prescott equation is performed, showing the approximations behind it and the physical meaning of the coefficients. A number of 33 empirical Ångström-Prescott equations of different degrees of complexity and originated from different location around the world are being analyzed and tested against data recorded at 59 European stations. No model is ranked as the best, but the specific situations when a model performs better than others are discussed. A comparative study on the influence of different parameters (latitude, altitude, season, local climatology) on the performance of the Ångström-Prescott equations is presented. It is shown that an Ångström-Prescott equation having relative sunshine, altitude and the month index as input parameters can explain roughly 90% of the variability in the data from the entire database considered in this paper.   

 

Stefu N, Paulescu M, Blaga R, Calinoiu D, Pop N, Boata R, Paulescu E (2016) A theoretical framework for Ångström equation. Its virtues and liabilities in solar energy estimation. Energy Conversion and Management, 112, 236-245

 

ABSTRACT. This study is focused on the linear relationship between the clear sky index and the relative sunshine proposed by the pioneering work of Ångström. A full semi-empirical derivation of the equation, highlighting its virtues and liabilities, is presented. Specific Ångström – type equations for beam and diffuse solar irradiation were derived separately. The sum of the two components recovers the traditional form of the Ångström equation.  The physical meaning of the Ångström parameter, as the average of the clouds transmittance, emerges naturally. The theoretical results on the Ångström equation performance are well supported by the tests against measured data. Using long-term records of global solar irradiation and sunshine duration from thirteen European radiometric stations, the influence of the Ångström constraint (slope equals one minus intercept) on the accuracy of the estimates is analyzed. Another focus is on the assessment of the degradation of the equation calibration. The temporal variability in cloud transmittance (both long-term trend and fluctuations) is a major source of uncertainty for Ångström equation estimates. 

 

 

2013 - 2014

 

 

The main topic of the seminar was focused on the evaluation of the aerosol influence on the solar energy collected at the ground level. Within these studies a parametric model for solar irradiance components (SIMv.1) was developed. Also a part of the seminaries was devoted to forecasting solar irradiance. Significant results:

 

Calinoiu D, Paulescu M, Ionel I, Stefu N, Pop N, Boata R, Pacurar A, Gravila P, Paulescu E, Trif-Tordai G. (2013) Influence of aerosols pollution on the amount of collectable solar energy. Energy Conversion and Management 70, 76-82.

 

ABSTRACT. The solar energy loss due to the atmospheric pollution with aerosols is assessed in this paper. For this, a parametric clear sky solar irradiance model has been built and validated. For applying the model, a set of four meteorological parameters (surface air pressure, ozone column content, nitrogen dioxide column content and the Ångström turbidity coefficient) are required at input. Eight episodes of pollution in Timisoara, Romania during 2011 have been identified. The energy loss in a pollution episode was evaluated as the difference between the clear sky solar irradiation computed in two situations: (1) using measured values for all inputs and (2) using measured values for all inputs excepting the Ångström turbidity coefficient, for which a climatological reference value has been assumed. The calculations show that the aerosol pollution can lead to a significant loss of collectable solar energy, of over 20%. Such very high values of losses are irregular in time and difficult to anticipate. However, such a reduction of collected energy should be taken into account when calculating the solar resource for sizing or operating a photovoltaic system. A practical simple equation which connects the collectable energy losses due to aerosols pollution to the Ångström turbidity coefficient has been established.

 

Calinoiu D, Stefu N, Paulescu M, Trif-Tordai G, Mares O, Paulescu E, Boata R, Pop N, Pacurar A. (2014) Evaluation of errors made in solar irradiance estimation due to averaging the Angstrom turbidity coefficient. Atmospheric Research, 150. 69-78.

 

ABSTRACT. Even though the monitoring of solar radiation experienced a vast progress in the recent years both in terms of expanding the measurement networks and increasing the data quality, the number of stations is still too small to achieve accurate global coverage. Alternatively, various models for estimating solar radiation are exploited in many applications. Choosing a model is often limited by the availability of the meteorological parameters required for its running. In many cases the current values of the parameters are replaced with daily, monthly or even yearly average values. This paper deals with the evaluation of the error made in estimating global solar irradiance by using an average value of the Ångström turbidity coefficient instead of its current value. A simple equation relating the relative variation of the global solar irradiance and the relative variation of the Ångström turbidity coefficient is established. The theoretical result is complemented by a quantitative assessment of the errors made when hourly, daily, monthly or yearly average values of the Ångström turbidity coefficient are used at the entry of a parametric solar irradiance model. The study was conducted with data recorded in 2012 at two AERONET stations in Romania. It is shown that the relative errors in estimating global solar irradiance (GHI) due to inadequate consideration of Ångström turbidity coefficient may be very high, even exceeding 20%. However, when instead of the current value of the Ångström turbidity coefficient an hourly or a daily average value is used, the relative errors are acceptably small, in general less than 5%. All results prove that in order to correctly reproduce GHI for various particular aerosol loadings of the atmosphere, the parametric models should rely on hourly or daily Ångström turbidity coefficient values rather than on the more usual monthly or yearly average data, if currently measured data is not available.

 

 

 

2010 -2012

 

 

The topic of the seminar was focused on modeling the UV solar radiation.

The main results were reported in two papers:

 

Paulescu M, Stefu N, Tulcan-Paulescu E, Caliniu D, Neculae A, Gravila P (2010) UV solar irradiance from broadband radiation and other meteorological data. Atmospheric Research 96, 141-148.

 

Two original models for estimating UV solar irradiance are reported in this paper. The first, UV4PM, evaluates UV solar irradiance using four surface parameters: air pressure, the ozone column content, the nitrogen dioxide column content and the Ångström turbidity coefficient. As demonstrated in the paper, UV4PM is able to trace exactly the atmospheric transmittances calculated by integrating the original spectral transmittances. The second model, UV2G, correlates the UV solar irradiance components with the broadband ones. UV2G is derived from UV4PM aiming to remove the ozone and nitrogen dioxide column content from the list of the input parameters. The model can be used in any sky conditions since broadband solar irradiance measurements carry within the information concerning the actual state of the sky. Comparison with other models and measurements shows a fair level of accuracy of UV4PM and UV2G models.

The models presented in this study can be regarded as starting points to develop other parametric models able to evaluate the biological effects of UV radiation. This goal can be achieved by just adding appropriate spectral weighting functions in the first step of the parameterization algorithm.

 

 

Paulescu E, Stefu N, Gravila P, Boata RS, Pop N, Paulescu M (2012) Procedure of embedding biological action functions into the atmospheric transmittance. Theoretical and Applied Climatology 109, 323-332.

 

The method may be adapted to construct other parametric models able to evaluate the required biological effective irradiance. This goal can be achieved by simply putting in the appropriate spectral weighting function in the first step of the parameterization algorithm. The user should then verify if using the weighted average in the parametric model is fit enough to approximate the original spectral one, otherwise we indicate a solution based on the generalized mean. To our knowledge, this is the first study using generalized instead of weighted average to enhance the accuracy of effective parametric transmittances. In order to guide potential users to derive models according to their own requirements, the procedures for elaborating an effective atmospheric transmittance parametric model has been described in detail. For users interested in speed-intensive computation of the effective solar irradiance, a PC program based on the parametric equations above along with a user guide is posted online at (http://solar.physics.uvt.ro/srms, section download_software). The application runs with celerity and is very easy to be exploited.