Abstract
Since the fossil reserves are depleting day by day, the trend of modern energy sector is going towards renewable energy. The demand of solar power plants is therefore at the peak nowadays across the globe. However, the construction of these plants is extremely dependent on feasibility study to estimate the real solar potential before installing it in any region. To evaluate the solar energy potential of Peshawar region in Pakistan, Ground-based global horizontal irradiance (GHI) and direct normal irradiance (DNI) were compared with satellite-based model SUNY. Ground measurements were done at the University of Engineering and Technology Peshawar (UET Peshawar) with the help of pyranometer and shadowband irradiometer. Comparison of the data showed that there was a maximum difference of 42.90% in ground and satellite-based GHI in the month of December. Minimum difference in GHI was found for the month of March that was −3.83%. Moreover, ground-based GHI was overestimated in the month of February, March, and April, while in rest of the months, satellite values of GHI exceeded the ground measurements. Similarly, maximum difference of 55.86% was found in the month of November between ground and satellite-based DNI while minimum difference of −3.34% was seen in DNI in the month of March between the two data. Furthermore, satellite-based DNI was underestimated in the months of February, March, and April while in rest of the months it was overestimated compared to ground measurements. In addition to this, correlation of ground and satellite-based GHI and DNI showed R2 value of 0.8852 and 0.4139, respectively. The results of this study revealed that the difference between ground measurements and satellite values was considerable and hence real time measurements are necessary to properly estimate solar energy resource in the country.