Development of microscale wind maps for Phaluay Island, Thailand

AbstractPhaluay Island (9o 31’ 30.27” N 99o 41’ 19.66” E), located in the Gulf of Thailand, was selected by the Ministry of Energy of Thailand as a pilot model to demonstrate the development of a ‘Green Island’. Renewable energy including wind energy has been promoted as an energy resource for the island. In this study, a microscale wind map with a resolution of 90 m x 90 m was developed from a mesoscale wind data with the resolution of 3 x 3 km2 using Meteodyn WT wind resource assessment software. The results revealed the spatial variation of the microscale wind over the island. The high wind speed was found mostly in the mountainous area and finally the potential site for the installation of wind turbine on Phaluay Island was identified

Mapping Global Solar Radiation from Long-Term Satellite Data in the Tropics Using an Improved Model

This paper presents an improved model and its application for mapping global solar radiation from satellite data in the tropics. The model provides a more complete description of the absorption and scattering of solar radiation in the earth-atmosphere system as compared to the earlier models. The study is conducted in the tropical environment of Thailand. Digital data from the visible channel of GMS4, GMS5, GOES9, and MTSAT-1R satellites collected during a 15-year period (1995–2009) are used as a main input to the model. Satellite gray levels are converted into earth-atmospheric reflectivity and used to estimate the cloud effect. The absorption of solar radiation due to water vapour is computed from precipitable water derived from ambient temperature and relative humidity. The total ozone column data from TOMS/EP and OMI/AURA satellites are used to compute solar radiation absorption by ozone. The depletion of solar radiation due to aerosol is estimated from visibility data. In order to test its performance, the model is employed to calculate monthly average daily global solar radiation at 36 solar monitoring stations across the country. It is found that solar radiation calculated from the model and that obtained from the measurement are in good agreement, with a root mean square difference of 5.3% and a mean bias difference of 0.3%. The model is used to calculate the monthly average daily global solar radiation over the entire country, and results are displayed as monthly and yearly maps. These maps reveal that the geographical distribution of solar radiation in Thailand is strongly influenced by the tropical monsoons and local geographical features

Characteristics of Different Systems for the Solar Drying of Crops

Solar dryers are used to enable the preservation of agricultural crops, food processing industries for dehydration of fruits and vegetables, fish and meat drying, dairy industries for production of milk powder, seasoning of wood and timber, textile industries for drying of textile materials. The fundamental concepts and contexts of their use to dry crops is discussed in the chapter. It is shown that solar drying is the outcome of complex interactions particular between the intensity and duration of solar energy, the prevailing ambient relative humidity and temperature, the characteristics of the particular crop and its pre-preparation and the design and operation of the solar dryer

From BASE-ASIA Toward 7-SEAS: A Satellite-Surface Perspective of Boreal Spring Biomass-Burning Aerosols and Clouds in Southeast Asia

In this paper, we present recent field studies conducted by NASA's SMART-COMMIT (and ACHIEVE, to be operated in 2013) mobile laboratories, jointly with distributed ground-based networks (e.g., AERONET, http://aeronet.gsfc.nasa.gov/ and MPLNET, http://mplnet.gsfc.nasa.gov/) and other contributing instruments over northern Southeast Asia. These three mobile laboratories, collectively called SMARTLabs (cf. http://smartlabs.gsfc.nasa.gov/, Surface-based Mobile Atmospheric Research & Testbed Laboratories) comprise a suite of surface remote sensing and in-situ instruments that are pivotal in providing high spectral and temporal measurements, complementing the collocated spatial observations from various Earth Observing System (EOS) satellites. A satellite-surface perspective and scientific findings, drawn from the BASE-ASIA (2006) field deployment as well as a series of ongoing 7-SEAS (2010-13) field activities over northern Southeast Asia are summarized, concerning (i) regional properties of aerosols from satellite and in situ measurements, (ii) cloud properties from remote sensing and surface observations, (iii) vertical distribution of aerosols and clouds, and (iv) regional aerosol radiative effects and impact assessment. The aerosol burden over Southeast Asia in boreal spring, attributed to biomass burning, exhibits highly consistent spatial and temporal distribution patterns, with major variability arising from changes in the magnitude of the aerosol loading mediated by processes ranging from large-scale climate factors to diurnal meteorological events. Downwind from the source regions, the tightly coupled-aerosolecloud system provides a unique, natural laboratory for further exploring the micro- and macro-scale relationships of the complex interactions. The climatic significance is presented through large-scale anti-correlations between aerosol and precipitation anomalies, showing spatial and seasonal variability, but their precise cause-and-effect relationships remain an open-ended question. To facilitate an improved understanding of the regional aerosol radiative effects, which continue to be one of the largest uncertainties in climate forcing, a joint international effort is required and anticipated to commence in springtime 2013 in northern Southeast Asia

An approach for estimating average daily global solar radiation from cloud cover in Thailand

AbstractGlobal solar radiation is important for solar energy applications. In this work, an approach for estimating monthly average daily global solar radiation in Thailand was proposed. In developing this approach, cloud cover and global solar radiation measured at 24 sites in Thailand were analyzed. According to the analysis, values of normalized monthly average daily global radiation were correlated with those of monthly average cloud cover. Then linear equations relating the normalized global radiation with the cloud cover were formulated. In the next step, the values of the slope and intercept of the equations from all sites were determined. These values were interpolated to cover the entire areas of the country and they were presented as contour maps. In the final step, a general empirical equation for estimating the average daily global radiation from the cloud cover was proposed. The model coefficients for the entire areas of the country were obtained from the maps. For the validation, the general equation was used to calculate average daily global radiation at 4 sites whose data were not used in the model development process. Finally, the results were compared with the measurements and they were in good agreement

Comparison of methods for generating typical meteorological year using meteorological data from a tropical environment

This paper presents the comparison of methods for generating typical meteorological year (TMY) data set using a 10-year period of meteorological data from four stations in a tropical environment of Thailand. These methods are the Sadia National Laboratory method, the Danish method and the Festa and Ratto method. In investigating their performance, these methods were employed to generate TMYs for each station. For all parameters of the TMYs and the stations, statistical test indicates that there is no significant difference between the 10-year average values of these parameters and the corresponding average values from TMY generated from each method. The TMY obtained from each method was also used as input data to simulate two solar water heating systems and two photovoltaic systems with different sizes at the four stations by using the TRNSYS simulation program. Solar fractions and electrical output calculated using TMYs are in good agreement with those computed employing the 10-year period hourly meteorological data. It is concluded that the performance of the three methods has no significant difference for all stations under this investigation. Due to its simplicity, the method of Sandia National Laboratories is recommended for the generation of TMY for this tropical environment. The TMYs developed in this work can be used for solar energy and energy conservation applications at the four locations in Thailand.Typical meteorological data Solar radiation Solar energy