Accuracy of Satellite-Based Solar Data to Estimate Solar Energy Potential for Hatay Province, Turkey

Solar radiation data is important parameter to estimate solar energy which is a major renewable energy in terms of sustainable resources. Accurate spatial and temporal distribution of solar radiation is required not only to estimate solar energy but also hydrological, meteorological and climatological studies. General objective of the study is to examine accuracy of freely available Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) solar radiation data against ground observation data based on monthly and yearly averages over the Hatay province in Turkey. The CFSR dataset including 25 daily solar radiation measurement points was evaluated against 12 ground stations for 21-year period (1985 - 2006). Statistical results showed that most correlations in monthly basis data were weakly correlated except October (R2=0.73). According to results of Bias, CFSR monthly averaged solar energy was over estimated for all months. Also, CFSR annual solar energy 28% higher than ground-based observed solar energy with R2=0.76. Annual CFSR solar energy found between 5.2 and 5.6 kWh m-2day-1. Annual ground-based solar energy ranged from 3.9 to 4.2 kWh m-2day-1. The result showed that, it is unacceptable to use the CFSR dataset in case of lack of measured values of ground-based solar radiation in monthly and yearly averaged basis. Estimated CFSR data has need to be improved and accuracy of CFSR data must be tested for other regions in Turkey. We recommend finding another source of satellite-based data to compare with ground-based data