Analysis of Solar Irradiance Data Sets

The most accurate measurements of solar radiation are obtained by a pyrometer placed at a
location for a number of years, usually on the order of a decade or more, measuring the direct
radiation every few minutes. However, the volume of data generated by this technique makes it
impractical (and unnecessary) to provide the full data set for each location for PV system design.
Instead, the data can be presented in several other formats.

The most conceptually straight forward method of reducing the data set is to average the data
over the measuring period. This form of data is called average daily, monthly or yearly radiation
data. Although this data is useful for basic system design, the day-to-day variation in the solar
radiation is lost. The loss of the day-to-day variation is critical since the design and performance
of a system with, for example, 5 kWh/day nearly every day is quite different than one with 8
kWh/day on some days followed by several cloudy days with 2 kWh/day.

Comparison of TMY and average solar radiation data.

RES/ PRINCIPLES OF SOLAR RADIATION/ GOLDVIN SUGIRTHA DHAS.B, AP/EEE

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The most common format for solar radiation data is TMY data (or TMY2 data used by the
National Renewable Energy Laboratories in the USA) which includes daily variability in the
data. TMY data sets are described in the following page. However, average solar radiation data,
particularly for each month of the year is also extensively used in rough estimates on the amount
of PV panels required.

An additional useful, although less common data which can be determined from the full radiation
data sets, is the probability of having a certain number of cloudy days which occur in a row,
whereby the definition of a cloudy day is usually a day where less than 50% of the theoretically
expected radiation is received. For example, at a certain location, 4 cloudy days in a row may
occur once a year and 5 cloudy days in a row may occur once every 5 years. This information is
particularly useful in estimating storage sufficient requirements. However, this information is
less commonly tabulated and, if used, must be determined from the original data sets.

Typical Meteorological Year Data (TMY)

The most common data for describing the local solar climate is through what is called Typical
Meteorological Year data (TMY). To determine TMY data, various meteorological
measurements are made at hourly intervals over a number of years to build up a picture of the
local climate. A simple average of the yearly data underestimates the amount of variability, so
the month that is most representative of the location is selected. For each month, the average
radiation over the whole measurement period is determined, together with the average radiation
in each month during the measurement period. The data for the month that has the average
radiation most closely equal to the monthly average over the whole measurement period is then
chosen as the TMY data for that month. This process is then repeated for each month in the year.
The months are added together to give a full year of hourly samples.

There is no strict standard for TMY data so the user must adjust the data to suit the application.
Considerable care must be taken with sample periods. An example of a raw TMY data file is
given below for January 1st in Melbourne, Australia. The comments on the right hand side of the
file describe the measurements taken and the data format.
RES/ PRINCIPLES OF SOLAR RADIATION/ GOLDVIN SUGIRTHA DHAS.B, AP/EEE
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TMY data is used for a wide variety of meteorological applications and therefore a large amount
of data is usually irrelevant for photovoltaic applications. Of the parameters given, usually only
the time and irradiation figures are used. However, more advanced models also use the
temperature and wind speed.

RES/ PRINCIPLES OF SOLAR RADIATION/ GOLDVIN SUGIRTHA DHAS.B, AP/EEE

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