Evaluation of different sunshine-based models for predicting global solar radiation – case study: New Borg El-Arab city, Egypt

Abstract

The unavailability of the solar radiation measurements for different locations around the world leads to develop various empirical models to estimate the global solar radiation. In this consider, this study aims to investigate the performance of different solar radiation models to predict the monthly average daily global solar radiation on a horizontal surface. To achieve this, the measured global solar radiation data for a case study location are used. The model predictions are compared with the measured data to introduce the most accurate model for estimating the global solar radiation. The performance of each model is evaluated based on the different statistical indicators. The results show that the Robaa model has the best performance among the other models. Consequently, it can be used for estimating global solar radiation on a horizontal surface in the location under consideration. The accurate estimations of the global solar radiation using this approach can be used in the design and evaluation of performance for different solar applications.