NEW MODEL FOR SOLAR RADIATION ESTIMATION FROM MEASURED AIR TEMPERATURE AND RELATIVE HUMIDITY IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Solar radiation prediction is essential for effective and reliable solar power project, predicted solar radiation can be used for accurate solar energy prediction. Solar radiation measurement is not sufficient in Nigeria for various reasons such as maintenance and repair cost, calibration of instrument, and expansive of measuring device. In this paper, adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) model was developed to predict the monthly average solar radiation in Nigeria. Air temperature of monthly mean minimum temperature, maximum temperature and relative humidity obtained from Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) were used as inputs to the ANFIS model and monthly mean global solar radiation was used as out of the model. Statistical evaluation of the model was done based on root mean square error (RMSE) and correlation coefficient R to examine the accuracy of the developed model. The values of RMSE and R for the training data are 0.91315MJ/m2 and 0.91264MJ/m2 respectively. The obtained result showed a good correlation between the predicted and measured solar radiation which proves ANFIS to be a good model for solar radiation prediction.  http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/njt.v36i3.3