Estimation of solar radiation using stochastically generated cloud cover data

Abstract

It was observed that hourly cloud cover data from two locations, Salisbury, MD and Ely, NV have a beta distribution. Beta distribution parameters P and Q were determined for each set of observations on a specific hour of a specific month. Random hourly cloud cover data were generated for the two locations using the set of P and Q parameters determined from observed data. The generated cloud cover data were used with a deterministic solar radiation model to compute hourly total solar radiation. Results indicate that the weekly totals of solar radiation computed using random cloud cover data for both locations are in good agreement with the observed weekly totals. The correlation coefficients between observed and calculated weekly solar radiation totals were 0.87 for Salisbury and 0.91 for Ely. © 1985.