Prediction of Global Solar Radiation in Abu Dhabi

Abstract

Mathematical expressions have been employed to estimate global solar radiation on horizontal from relative sunshine duration for two weather stations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which are Abu Dhabi and Al Ain. These expressions include the original Angstrom-Prescott regression function (linear), quadratic function, third-order function, single-term exponential function, power function, logarithmic, and linear-logarithmic function. The predicted values were compared to the measured values using number of statistical methods to validate the goodness of the fits, such as residual analysis and goodness of fit statistics. All the used mathematical models performed generally well in both cities of Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, with all values of the coefficient of determination (R2) higher than 75%. Specifically, the linear Angstrom-Prescott model estimated the average monthly global radiation on horizontal best for the city of Abu Dhabi, providing the second lowest mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 1.89% and the highest value of R2, which is approximately 94%, while the third-order model proved to be the best estimator for the city of Al Ain, providing the lowest MAPE value (3.06%) and a corresponding R2 of 83%.