Development of a Daily Databank of Solar Radiation Components for Moroccan Territory

Abstract

The main objective of this work is to create a daily updated database that includes all components of solar radiation, either energetic or spectral radiation. This will lead us to quantify the Moroccan solar potential and to determine the dimensions of all types of solar thermal and photovoltaic systems. Consequently, the obtained database will be the fundamental support for engineers, designers, and all organizations interested in developing solar systems, in different regions throughout Morocco. It will also be a basic tool for researchers in modelling and simulating the new solar systems. Firstly, we used one year’s worth of measurements of the different components of the solar radiation, provided by the National Meteorological Department, to establish the extrapolation equations between the global radiation at the reference site and the global radiation of twenty-eight other sites. As well as with the same measurements, we developed the correlation equations between the global solar radiation and the other solar radiation components. Secondly, from ten years of Fez station’s daily global radiation measurements and through the extrapolation equations, we were able to estimate the global radiation of all Moroccan cities. Then, by using the obtained global radiation data and the correlation equations, we predicted the other components of solar radiation. Subsequently, with a new measurement campaign carried out on several sites, we validated the estimation models by using the usual statistical indicators. In addition, we compared our results with those obtained by other estimation models. The resulting differences for each solar component display the advantage of our model with errors under 6%. To facilitate the use of our results, we compiled them into maps representing the spread of solar radiation across Morocco.