Smoke aerosol plumes generated during the biomass burning season in Brazil suffer long-range transport, resulting in large aerosol optical depths over an extensive domain. As a consequence, downward surface solar irradiance, and in particular the direct component, can be significantly reduced. Accurate solar energy assessments considering the radiative contribution of biomass burning aerosols are required to support Brazil’s solar power sector. This work presents the 2nd generation of the radiative transfer model BRASIL-SR, developed to improve the aerosol representation and reduce the uncertainties in surface solar irradiance estimates in cloudless hazy conditions and clean conditions. Two numerical experiments allowed to assess the model’s skill using observational or regional MERRA-2 reanalysis AOD data in a region frequently affected by smoke. Four ground measurement sites provided data for the model output validation. Results for DNI obtained using δ-Eddington scaling and without scaling are compared, with the latter presenting the best skill in all sites and for both experiments. An increase in the relative error of DNI results obtained with δ-Eddington optical depth scaling as AOD increases is evidenced. For DNI, MBD deviations ranged from −2.3 to −0.5%, RMSD between 2.3 and 4.7% and OVER between 0 and 5.3% when using in-situ AOD data. Overall, our results indicate a good skill of BRASIL-SR for the estimation of both GHI and DNI.
Several studies show the effects of lake breezes on cloudiness over natural lakes and large rivers, but only few contain information regarding large flooded areas of hydroelectric dams. Most Brazilian hydropower plants have large water reservoirs that may induce significant changes in the local environment. In this work, we describe the prevailing breeze mechanism in a Brazilian tropical hydropower reservoir to assess its impacts on local cloudiness and incoming surface solar irradiation. GOES-16 visible imagery, ISCCP database products, and ground measurement sites operated by INMET and LABREN/INPE provided data for the statistical analysis. We evaluate the cloudiness frequency assuming two distinct perspectives: spatial distribution by comparing cloudiness over the water surface and areas nearby its shores, and time analysis by comparing cloudiness prior and after reservoir completion. We also evaluated the solar irradiance enhancement over the water surface compared to the border and land areas surrounding the hydropower reservoir. The results pointed out daily average cloudiness increases moving away from the reservoir in any of the four cardinal directions. When looking at the afternoon-only cloudiness (14 h to 16 h local time), 4% fewer clouds were observed over the flooded area during summer (DJF). This difference reaches 8% during autumn (MAM) and spring (SON). Consequently, the irradiance enhancement at the water surface compared to external areas was around 1.75% for daily average and 4.59% for the afternoon-only average. Our results suggest that floating solar PV power plants in hydropower reservoirs can be an excellent option to integrate both renewable energy resources into a hybrid power generation due to the high solar irradiance in Brazilian territory combined with the prevailing breeze mechanism in large tropical water reservoirs.
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