Comparative study of various correlations in estimating hourly diffuse fraction of global solar radiation

Proper design and performance predictions of solar energy systems require accurate information on the availability of solar radiation. The diffuse-to-global solar radiation correlation, originally developed by Liu and Jordan, has been extensively used as the technique providing accurate results, although it is latitude dependent. Thus, in the present study, empirical correlations of this type were developed to establish a relationship between the hourly diffuse fraction (k(d)) and the hourly clearness index (k(t)) using hourly global and diffuse irradiation measurements on a horizontal surface performed at Athalassa, Cyprus. The proposed correlations were compared against 10 models available in the literature in terms of the widely used statistical indicators, rmse, mbe and t test. From this analysis, it can be concluded that the proposed yearly correlation predicts diffuse values accurately, whereas all candidate models examined appear to be location-independent for diffuse irradiation predictions. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.