Measurement of

Solar Radiation
 Types
• Irradiance (G, W/m2)
The rate of incident energy per unit area of a surface.
• Insolation (H, J/m2)
The amount of solar radiation arriving at the top of the
atmosphere.

• Direct / Beam
• Diffuse radiation
• Global / Total solar radiation = Direct + Diffuse
• Ground Reflected radiation
Global radiation on a horizontal surface

Clear day

Cloudy day
 Measuring solar radiation
• Pyranometer - measure global and diffuse
radiation
•Principle of ‘heating proportional to radiation’ is
used together with thermopile
• Radiation are collected from a hemisphere
• For calculation of diffuse radiation, a shading
ring is used

•Pyrheliometer is used for measuring direct solar

radiation, principle similar to Pyranometer is
used, but only direct radiation falls on the detector
 Introduction
• The knowledge of solar radiation, ambient temperature and with a few
other meteorological parameters (wind velocity, relative humidity etc.)
are required for the design of equipment, or in running or in controlling
them.
• In order to facilitate design and performance calculations when data
are not available, estimation methods have been dealt with.

• It is to be understood that " nonavailability " of data is of two kinds :

1) does not exist, i.e., no measurements good enough to obtain

statistical averages have been made in the past and

2) not available at the moment and or is not suitable for simple

calculations.
• Synthetic Data Generation (several isolated
correlations to estimate solar radiation and
ambient temperature developed at different
points of time by scientists / researchers
pooled together)

• Use of synthetic data further has the

advantage of easy implementation on a
computer.
 SOLAR RADIATION MEASURING
INSTRUMENTS
• Two types of infrared detectors.

Thermal detectors and photon detectors.

• Thermal detectors:
Heating effect of incident radiation causing a change in some
physical property of the detector is the principle underlying the
thermal detectors. The time constant of the detectors should be
small for responding to quick changes in the incident radiation.
• photon detectors:
Photon detectors convert some of the incident radiation directly
into electricity, which is proportional to the incident radiation.
• Alternately, instruments to measure solar radiation broadly fall into
three categories.

Those measure

• 1) global radiation
• 2) diffuse radiation and
• 3) direct radiation.

It is best to measure normal incident direct radiation and in order to

do this, the instrument sensor needs to face the sun always. This
calls for a tracking instrument and additional equipment to follow
the sun.
• Most often, global and diffuse components of radiation are
measured and direct radiation measurements be used in
checking the other two measurements.
• The instruments used to measure global radiation......
Pyranometers.

• The instruments used to measure diffuse radiation

....pyranometers with shading ring (which cuts off the direct
radiation)

• The instruments that measure direct radiation

........Pyrheliometers.
•
Pyranometer
The inner and outer domes, their role is to filter out infrared radiation coming from
the atmosphere and the
surroundings and to allow shortwave radiation coming from the sun to reach the
detector.
•
The detector is a thermopile made with more than 40 thermocouples connected in
series. The hot junction of the
thermopile is coated with a highly absorbing material.
• The body of the instrument is a cylindrical piece of brass painted white to reduce the
absorption of solar irradiance. The electrical circuit is mounted inside. The body is
used as
heat sink for the cold junction of the thermopile.
The guard disk is a circular piece of metal painted white. It shields the instrument body
• from downwelling solar
radiation.
The instrument also contains a desiccant to remove the humidity inside the body to
• protect the circuitry, and a bubble
level to guide the leveling of the absorber surface.

8
Construction of Pyranometer
• Eppley pyranometer designed by Kimball and Hobbs (United
States).

It consists of two concentric silver rings. The inner ring is coated

with Parsons optical black lacquer and the outer one is coated with
white magnesium oxide. The temperature difference between the
two is an indication of the incident solar radiation and is measured
by a thermopile.
• The sensor is placed inside a hermetically sealed spherical lamp
bulb filled with dry air.

• The detector is best when used to measure horizontal radiation.

• Moll - Gorczynski Pyranometer ( Kipp Solarimeter )
• The Moll - Gorczynski pyranometer is a thermopile
instrument.

• The receiving surface is covered by two concentric

ground and polished glass hemispherical domes of 2-
mm thickness.

• The thermopile surface is rectangular and is orientation

sensitive.
 Other Pyranometers
• Dirmhirn - Sauberer Pyranometer (also called Star
Pyranometer)

• Volochine Pyranometer and

• Yanishevsky Thermoelectric Pyranometer

are the other pyranometers with some variation
in the detector or the sensor arrangement.
Bimetallic Actinographs

• Bimetallic actinographs are self contained

recorders.
• The temperature difference between a black
coated bimetallic strip exposed to solar radiation
and other similar bimetallic strip either painted
white or shielded from solar radiation is recorded
through a mechanical linkage.
 Diffuse Pyranometers
Pyranometers described measure the global solar
•radiation, i.e.; they receive both direct and
diffuse components of radiation.
The same instrument can be used to measure
diffuse radiation by shielding the sensor element
•
from direct radiation. The shielding of direct
radiation is accomplished by fitting a shading ring
of predesigned width the shadow of which just
shields the sensor of the pyranometer. The ring
needs an adjustment once a day.
• Though, all the pyranometers described produce an
electric output, which can be read out by a
millivoltmeter or a microvoltmeter.

• continuous recording for subsequent integration ( to

obtain, hourly, or daily totals ) need recorders and or
integrators that need uninterrupted power supply.

• In the absence of which power failures, not only

disrupt the recording, may also cause initialization
problems and the readings become suspect.
Sunshine Recorder

• The sunshine recorders essentially static, do not require

power supply.
• They are essentially, spherical lenses, which blacken a
sensitive strip.
• Though these recorders are only approximate, they are
simple to use.
• Campbell-Stokes Recorder focuses solar radiation to burn a
trace in a chart.
• Jordan Recorder focuses sunlight on to photographic paper.
• Marvin Recorder makes use of a thermoelectric switch to
actuate a chronograph to trace the sunshine hours.
Pyrheliometers

• Angstrom Compensation Pyrheliometer is one of the most

commonly used pyrheliometer.

The other pyrheliometers include

• Abbot Silver-Disk Pyrheliometer

• Michelson Bimetallic pyrheliometer
• Linke- Feussner Pyrheliometer (also called Actinometers).
• Eppley ( Normal Incidence ) Pyrheliometer
• Yanishevsky Thermoelectric Pyrheliometer
• Photovoltaic Silicon Pyrheliometer
• Active Cavity Radiometer (newest instrument)
SUMMARY

• Principles of operation of different solar radiation measuring

instruments have been described.
• Some of them measure the global radiation, some the diffuse
radiation and the others the direct radiation.
• Direct radiation measurements are usually made to check the
measurements of global and diffuse radiation.
• Sunshine recorder is a convenient (though approximate) solar
radiation measuring instrument, since it does not require power
supply. However, needs to be calibrated (to determine the location
dependent constants) against measurements made by
pyranameters etc. The location dependent constants, thus
determined are applicable for locations of similar climate.
Generated emf = 0 to 10 mV
Black and white pyranometer

Pyrheliometer with tracker

Pyranometer on shadow
band stand
 Sunshine Recorder (Campbell-stokes)
Glass sphere is about 10 cm diameter
Set of grooves for taking
three set of cards
1) Long curved for summer
2) Short curved for winter
3) Straight cards for equinoxes

Spherical bowl
with grooves

Recorder cards (Burn)

Sun radiation intensity is more than 200 W/m2

The amount of sunshine during the day is measured on a

sunshine recorder
• Measures the horizontal global and diffuse irradiance as well as
sunshine duration from a single, stationary sensor
• No need for cards / shading ring
• Electronic signals as output
 Estimating solar radiation empirically:
Global radiation
Estimation of monthly average global radiation on horizontal
surface H  S 
 a  b a 
ga

H oa  S max a 
Hga = monthly averaged daily global radiation on a horizontal surface
Hoa = monthly averaged extra-terrestrial solar radiation at horizontal surface
(at top of atmosphere)
Sa and Smaxa = monthly averaged daily sunshine hours and maximum
possible daily sunshine hours (the day length) at a given location.
a and b = constant
 Values of constant a and b
Location a b
Ahmedabad, India 0.28 0.48
Atlanta, Gerorgia, USA 0.38 0.26
Brownsville, Texas, USA 0.35 0.31
• The values of
Buuenos Aires, Argentina 0.26 0.50 the constant is
Charleston, S. C., USA 0.48 0.09 empirically
Bangalore, India 0.18 0.64 obtained from
Hamburg, Germany 0.22 0.57 know data
Malange, Angola 0.34 0.34
Miami, Florida, USA 0.42 0.22
Nagpur, India 0.27 0.50
New Delhi, India 0.25 0.57
Nice, France 0.17 0.63
Pune, India 0.31 0.43 •Ref: Lof J.A. et al, 1966
Rafah, Egypt 0.36 0.35
Stanleyville, Congo 0.28 0.39
Tamanrasset, Algeria 0.30 0.43
 Estimation of Extra-terrestrial solar radiation
• Hoa is equal to Ho if calculated on following days of month;
January 17, February 16, March 16, April 15, May 15, June
11, July 17, August 16, September 15, October 15,
November 14 and December 10.

The monthly averaged daily solar extra-terrestrial radiation

H o  S t  cos  dt
24  360n 
Ho  S 1  0.033 cos ( s sin  sin   cos  cos  sin  s )
  365 

S is in W/m2 the Ho will be W-Hour/m2

 Problem
• Example: Estimate the monthly average daily global
radiation on the horizontal surface at Nagpur (21.06N,
79.03E) during month of March 16 if the average sunshine
hours per day is 9.2. Assume values for a=0.27 and b=0.50

H ga  Sa  Given: Φ, a, b, Sa
 a  b 
H oa  S max a  Required: δ, ωs, Smax,a, Hoa, n, S

24  360 n 
H o  H oa  S 1  0.033 cos (s sin  sin   cos cos sin s )
  365 
 360  coss   tan  tan 
  23.34 sin  (284  75) 
 365  s  cos ( tan  tan  )
1
 •Solution: On March 16, n=75
•δ= -2.4177

s  cos1 ( tan 21.15 tan  2.4177 )

s  89.0640
Day length=11.8752 hr, Sunrise and sunset hours?
24  360 * 57 
Ho  1.367 * 3600 1  0.033 cos (1.5544 sin 21.15 sin  2.4177 
  365 
cos 21.15 cos 2.4177 sin 89.0640 )

•Ho=34140.2 kJ/m2-day
• Hga = 22442.46 kJ/m2-day
 Monthly averaged daily Diffuse radiation
for s  81.4and 0.3  KT  0.8
H da
 1.391  3.560 KT  4.189 KT2  2.137 KT3
H ga
for s  81.4and 0.3  KT  0.8
H da
 1.311  3.022 KT  3.427 KT2  1.821KT3
H ga
•s = sunrise hour angle
•KT = sky monthly averaged clearness index, = Hga / Hoa

• Typically diffuse radiation is about 10 to 20% of the

global radiation on horizontal surface
 Solar Radiation
Map of India

Solar Radiation Potential - India

20 MW / km2
4-7 kWh/ m2 /day