A method for the determination of the global solar radiation from meteorological satellite data

Using reduced data sets ISCCP-B2 from the Meteosat satellites to assess surface solar irradiance

“…This method is particularly suitable for processing time-series of data acquired by a series of sensors that are similar but differ slightly in calibration as it is the case of the Meteosat system prior to 1998 (Anonymous 1996). It is based on the principle that the attenuation of the downwelling shortwave radiation by the atmosphere over a pixel is determined by the magnitude of change between the reflectance that should be observed under a very clear sky and that currently observed (Pastre, 1981;Cano et al, 1986;Stuhlmann et al, 1990). In the method Heliosat-2, the SSI is computed by the means of the clear-sky index K c defined as:…”

Derivation of Cloud Index from Geostationary Satellites and Application to the Production of Solar Irradiance and Daylight Illuminance Data

“…Most methodologies to retrieve short wave irradiance from satellite images rely on the quasilinear relationship between atmospheric transmittance and a cloud index parameter linearly dependent on the earth-plus-atmosphere albedo indirectly observed by the satellite as short wave radiance and registered as satellite count (Schmetz, 1989;Cano, 1986). The equation that effectively governs all or part of most satellite-to-global irradiance models is:…”

“…where G clear and G min represent the maximum possible and likely minimum irradiances (different expressions of G clear are discussed in section 4), and where n is the cloud index that is effectively de®ned as (Cano, 1986): n C À C min a C max À C min 2 and where C, C min and C max are normalized values of the current, minimum and maximum satellite counts, representing respectively current, clear and heavily overcast conditions.…”

“…Once corrected for sensor response, pixel brightness ± or satellite count, as we will refer throughout this paper ± is, in ®rst approximation, linearly related to global irradiance received at the earth's surface (Tarpley, 1979;Cano, 1986;Schmetz, 1989). This paper investigates the relationship between satellite count, global irradiance and other solar and illumination resource components (e.g., sky luminance).…”

Methods and tools to evaluate the availability of renewable energy sources

“…Rigollier et al (2004), in agreement with other authors, points out that, for satellite data with pixel sizes of 10 km, the assessment of solar irradiation provides more precise values compared to results of estimates by interpolation of measurements from meteorological stations as soon as the distance between the stations is greater than 34 km for hourly irradiation values, and 50 km for daily values. A widely used method within this approach is the Heliosat method, which was originally implemented by Cano et al (1986) and modified by Beyer et al (1996) and Hammer (2000) (Müller et al 2002). The method has been further improved by Rigollier et al (2004), implementing the Heliosat2 method.…”