| Author | Islam, Md. Rafiqul |
| Call Number | AIT Diss. no. ET-93-1 |
| Subject(s) | Solar radiation
|
| Note | A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Engineering. |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Series Statement | Dissertation ; no. ET-93-1 |
| Abstract | There is no routine solar radiation mapping system for the developing and underdeveloped countries in south and southeast Asia to support the radiation database useful for solar energy, agricultural, meteorological, environmental and other engineering applications. The prime objective of this research was to establish a complete operational low cost system for mapping daily apd monthly global solar radiation reaching at the surface over a geographical coverage using satellite images for the said region. The system developed and installed at Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok, uses low resolution Automatic Picture Transmission (APT) images transmitted from NOAA polar orbiting satellites. A statistical bi-spectral model is used to calculate the cloudiness of the sky over targets of size 11 lkm by 11 lkm building a mapping area. One to three measurements in a day by NOAA satellites are combined with variable weights to calculate daily effective cloudiness. Ground measured radiation data from selected stations within the mapping area are used to correlate with the calculated cloudiness for the targets of the stations. These correlations are used to estimate for the whole map. The bi-spectral model and the operations of the system are designed to fit the present image and to match with the low cost facilities. Solar radiation can be estimated over the land and over the ocean equally using this model. The hardware system comprises a low cost NOAA APT image receiver with a small non-tracking antenna, an ordinary personal computer with monochrome monitors, an interface card, and output devices like simple graphics printer and floppy and hard disk drives with sufficient number of floppy disks. The instrumental costs do not exceed 11000 US$. The images produced by the receiver have only sixteen grey levels and ground resolution of 6.6km by 10.8km. It was required to develop an algorithm to automatically detect the reception-time interferences imbedded in image. An operational software package, RADMAP, is developed to perform all tasks starting from image recording through subsequent processing of satellite and ground data to produce the final output in different media in a systematic basis and in interactive but simple modes. The package consists of a number of specific task oriented stand alone executable modules. It can handle two mapping areas simultaneously. The effective mapping coverage can be as big as 15° latitude and 20° longitude in the equatorial region. To make the whole system economical, the speed of operation and the estimation accuracy is sacrificed but these are still reasonable. The mean standard error of estimate of model was 12.9% with a range of 6%-19% of measured mean for daily total global solar radiation at the ground for a mapping area over Thailand. High mean standard error of 16.95% with range of 9-24% was obtained for a mapping area over Bangladesh ·which is at the end of the coverage of the image receiving station. The mean r.m.s. error of estimation was 14.45% of measured mean of daily global solar radiation obtained by comparing estimated values with measured values. The error of estimating monthly mean of daily values was 1.29- 1.46 MJ/m 2 .d and 1.9 MJ/m 2 .d for Thailand and Bangladesh respectively. The daily and monthly mean radiation maps produced can explain real climatological and geographical influences on the insolation distribution and variability over space and time. Therefore, the prospect of this system is very high in the light of the accuracy of estimation, total cost, operational efficiency, size of coverage and networking capacity for global coverage. |
| Year | 1993 |
| Corresponding Series Added Entry | Asian Institute of Technology. Dissertation ; no. ET-93-1 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Environment, Resources, and Development (SERD) |
| Department | Department of Energy and Climate Change (Former title: Department of Energy, Environment, and Climate Change (DEECC)) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Energy Technology (ET) |
| Chairperson(s) | Exell, R.H.B.; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Mora, J.C.;Surapong, C.;Aschbacher, J.;Hay, J.E.; |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | DAAD; |
| Degree | Thesis (Ph.D.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1993 |