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

Abstract

International audienceA statistical method is presented for the determination of the global solar radiation at ground level. It makes use of data from the meteorological satellites, which provide extensive coverage as well as adequate ground resolution. In the first step, a reference map of ground albedo is deduced from the time-sequence of satellite images. Then, by comparing the satellite data with the computed albedo map, a cloud coverage index is determined for each ground point of 5 km x 5 km. This index is linearly correlated to the atmospheric transmission factor. The regression parameters are estimated using a training set provided by ground pyranometers. Tests for two different time periods show a good agreement between the actual and model-derived hourly global radiation