ESTIMATION OF PHOTOVOLTAIC ENERGY PRODUCTION IN PORTUGAL

Abstract

Global Horizontal Irradiance is the most commonly component of solar radiation to be measured. However, when projecting and installing solar energy systems, those are not installed horizontally but at a certain angle to optimize solar radiation interception. With this in mind, the present work is based on the solar radiation data measured by IPMA's-Portuguese Institute for Sea and Atmosphere network, consisting in 89 measuring stations across the country. With basis on the assessment of Global Horizontal Irradiation availability performed in previous publications, a known methodology was applied in order to estimate the Global Tilted Irradiation for each valid location of the network. Once the Global Tilted Irradiation is estimated for a surface tilted with an angle equal to the local latitude angle, an estimation of the potential solar photovoltaic energy production was performed.