Abstract

In this investigation, five existing independent empirical models were calibrated and evaluated to calculate daily and monthly mean global solar radiation on a horizontal surface in Adrar city located in the south of Algeria, using meteorological data measured from 2013 to 2018. The measured data were divided into two periods; the first period (2015-2018) was used to calculate the empirical coefficients of the models, while the second period (2013-2014) was used to validate the correlations. Additionally, the best model (Al-Salaymeh model) was compared with five dependent empirical extreme air temperature models. In general, the results show that dependent models exhibited privileged performance than independent models. However, Al-Salaymeh regression independent model can contend with regression dependent models. Because of they use only the day number as a key input with smaller relative errors. It is found that daily statistical tests mean absolute bias error, root mean square error and coefficient of determination were equal to 2.0117 MJ/m², 2.4612 MJ/m² and 0.8014 respectively. The best independent empirical model was also compared with the modified Algerian solar atlas model to show their effectiveness. As a conclusion, the simple independent models can satisfactorily describe the horizontal global solar radiation for Adrar.

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