CHAPTER 2 Solar radiation resource assessment

Preamble
India is located in the sunny belt of the earth, thereby receiving
abundant radiant energy from the sun. Its equivalent energy
potential is about 6,000 million GWh of energy per year. India
being a tropical country is blessed with good sunshine over
most parts, and the number of clear sunny days in a year also
being quite high. India is in the sunny belt of the world. The
country receives solar energy equivalent to more than 5,000
trillion kWh per year. The daily average global radiation is
around 5 .0 kWh/m2 in north-eastern and hilly areas to about
7.0 kWh/m2 in western regions and cold dessert areas with the
sunshine hours ranging between 2300 and 3200 per year. In
most parts of India, clear sunny weather is experienced for 250
to 300 days a year. The annual global radiation varies from
1600 to 2200 kWh/m2. The direct normal insolation1 (DNI)
over Rajasthan varies from 1800 kWh/m2 to 2600 kWh/m2.
This chapter covers the detailed-feasibility of solar radiation
resource assessment and Direct Normal Insolation (DNI) study
for Jodhpur Rajasthan.

Rajasthan
Rajasthan is situated in the north-western part of India. It
covers 342,239 square kilometres. Rajasthan lies between
latitudes 23o 3'and 30o 12', North and longitudes 69o 30' and 78o
17', East. The southern part of Rajasthan is about 225 km from
the Gulf of Kutch and about 400 km from the Arabian Sea.
Rajasthan is bounded by Pakistan in the west and north-west;
by the State of Punjab in the north; by Haryana in the north-
east; by Uttar Pradesh in the east, by Madhya Pradesh in the
south-east and Gujarat in the south-west.
The climate of Rajasthan can be divided into four seasons;
summers, Monsoon, Post-Monsoon and winter. A summer,
which extends from April to June, is the hottest season, with
temperatures ranging from 32 oC to 45 oC. In western Rajasthan
the temp may rise to 48 oC, particularly in May and June. The
second season Monsoon extends from July to September, temp
drops, but humidity increases, even when there is slight drop in
the temp (35 oC to 40 oC). 90% of rains occur during this period.
The Post-monsoon period is from October to November. The
average maximum temperature is 33o C to 38o C, and the

1DNI= Direct normal insolation; all concentrating solar power

technologies comprises this component of solar radiation only.

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 6 Detailed-feasibility study for developing solar Dish-Sterling power plant at Jodhpur,
Rajasthan

minimum is between 18 oC and 20 oC. The fourth season is

winter or the cold season, from December to March. There is a
marked variation in maximum and minimum temperatures and
regional variations across the state. January is the coolest
month of the year. There is slight precipitation in the north and
north-eastern region of the state, and light winds,
predominantly from the north and northeast. At this time,
relative humidity ranges from 50% to 60% in the morning, and
25% to 35% in the afternoon.
The north-west part of the country is best suited for solar
energy based projects because the location receives maximum
amount of solar radiation annually in the country. Figure 2.1
presents the annual average DNI map for the northwest region
of India.

Bap

Figure 2.1 DNI map of North-west region on India

(Source: National Renewable Energy Laboratory, USA)

Solar radiation over Rajasthan

Rajasthan receives maximum solar radiation intensity in India.
In addition the average rainfall is minimum in the state, hence
best suited for solar power generation. The global solar radiation
map of Rajasthan is presented in Figure 2.2; which is based on
the measured data of Indian Metrological Department (IMD)
and satellite data through NASA. The map clearly emphasize

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7 Solar radiation resource assessment

that the western and southern parts of the state receives good
amount of annual average solar radiation. Jodhpur is also one
representative location of Rajasthan State.

Figure 2.2 Global solar radiation map of Rajasthan

(Source: TERI Analysis)
Bap, Jodhpur
Jodhpur is the one of the largest district of Rajasthan is
centrally situated in Western region of the State, having
geographical area of 22850 sq. km. The district stretches
between 2600’ and 27037’ at North Latitude and between 72o55’
and 73o 52’ at East Longitude. This district is situated at the
height between 250-300 meters above sea level. Jodhpur is
bound by Nagaur in East, Jaisalmer in west, Bikaner in North as
well as Pali in the South. The length of the district from North to
South and from East to West is 197 Km. & 208 Km. respectively.
This district comes under arid zone of the Rajasthan state. It
covers 11.60% of total area of arid zone of the state. The average
rainfall is around 360 millimetres, it is extraordinarily variable.
Bap block of Jodhpur district is and situated between Jodhpur,
Jaisalmer and Bikaner districts in western Rajasthan. Located
in the heart of the Thar desert, Bap gives the impression of
endless desolation, with scattered habitation. A typical sun path
diagram2 for Bap, Jodhpur has been presented in Figure 2.3.

2Sun path diagrams are a convenient way of representing annual changes

in the path of the Sun through the sky within a single 2D diagram. Their
most immediate use is that the solar azimuth and altitude can be read off
directly for any time of the day and day of the year. They also provide a
unique summary of solar position that the designer can refer to when
considering shading requirements and design options.

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 8 Detailed-feasibility study for developing solar Dish-Sterling power plant at Jodhpur,
Rajasthan

Stereographic Diagram N
Lo c a tio n: 26 .3°, 73 .0 ° 34 5° 15 °
S un P o sition : 1 53 .9°, 65 .6°
H SA: 15 3.9 ° 3 30 ° 30 °
VSA: 11 2.1°
1 0°

3 15 ° 4 5°
2 0°

3 0°
3 00 ° 6 0°
4 0°
1st Jul 6
1 st Jun
19 5 0°
1st Aug

2 85 ° 6 0° 7 1 st M ay
7 5°
18
7 0°
1st S ep 8
17
8 0° 9
16 1st Ap r
15 10
2 70 ° 14 11 9 0°
13 12
1st O c t

1 st M ar

1st N °ov
2 55 1 05 °
1st Feb

1 st D ec
1st Ja n

2 40 ° 1 20 °

2 25 ° 1 35 °

2 10 ° 15 0°
T ime : 1 2:00
D ate : 1 st A p r (9 1)
19 5° 16 5°
D otted line s: July-D ec embe r. 18 0°

Figure 2.3 Sun-path Diagram for the location of Bap, Jodhpur

(Source: Ecotech Software)

Solar radiation resource assessment

Resource assessment is the primary and essential exercise
towards project evaluation. In India, the Indian Meteorological
Department (IMD) measures the solar radiation and other
climatic parameters over various locations across the country
however, the measuring stations record only global and diffuse
solar radiation on horizontal surfaces. The parabolic Dish-
Sterling technology utilises infrared component of direct
normal component of global solar radiation; which is essentially
the solar radiation measured/assessed at a surface normal to
Sun rays throughout the day. The direct solar radiation is not
measured at many locations of India; while it could be
estimated through global and diffuse solar radiation on
horizontal surface. The direct solar radiation is not measured by
IMD in Jodhpur while the global and diffuse solar radiation
values are measuring from last 25-30 years. The best way of
carrying out the solar radiation resource assessment is to use

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 9 Solar radiation resource assessment

TMY3 (Typical Meteorological Year weather data files) data files

for selected location. Since the TMY data files for Indian
locations are not available hence in the present study the
METEONORM4 database has been used for solar radiation
study and DNI estimation. Further the DNI values estimated
using METEONORM data base have been compared with the
values obtained using IMD data as well as with the NASA
satellite data for the location of Jodhpur.
In order to assess the closeness of the METEONORM data a
comparison of the monthly values obtained from ‘Handbook of
Solar Radiation’ by A Mani5 with TMY data of METEONORM.
The annual global solar radiation through Mani and
METEONORM database has been obtained as 2201 kWh/m2
and 2051 kWh/m2 respectively; which are very close (<7%
deviation). Figure 2.4 presents the global solar radiation over
Bap, Jodhpur using the data of A Mani and METEONORM.

250
Global Solar Radiation (kWh/m )

200
2

150

100

50

0
JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC

MANI METEONORM

Figure 2.4 Global Solar Radiation over Bap, Jodhpur (from Mani and
METEONORM)

Estimation of solar radiation on different tracking surfaces

3 † TMY data sets for 234 U.S. locations, derived from the widely accepted 1952-1975 SOLMET/ERSATZ data base, have
been modified at the Solar Energy Laboratory for ease of use with the TRNSYS energy system simulation program. The
original TMY files are ASCII text files containing one year of weather data (ranging from solar radiation to precipitation) at one
hour time intervals. TRNSYS TMY files, containing only the most widely used information from the original files and corrected
for known problems.

4 METEONORM is a comprehensive meteorological reference, incorporating a catalogue of meteorological data and

calculation procedures for solar applications and system design at any desired location in the world. It is based on over 20
years of experience in the development of meteorological databases for energy applications. METEONORM addresses
engineers, architects, teachers, planners and anyone interested in solar energy and climatology. The database includes
climatological data of 7 700 weather stations (60 stations of India) based on measured climatic parameters viz. solar radiation,
temperature, humidity, precipitation, days with precipitation, wind speed and direction, sunshine duration etc. including
complete coverage of the global, including polar regions.

5 Mani, A., Handbook of Solar Radiation, Allied Publishers, 1982.

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 10 Detailed-feasibility study for developing solar Dish-Sterling power plant at Jodhpur,
Rajasthan

TMY file for the locations of Jodhpur has been selected from
METEONORM database. A program has been developed to
estimate the direct solar radiation over stationary and tracking
surfaces (single axis, double-axis) using computer software
TRNSYS6. TRNSYS is a time dependent systems simulation
program, which recognizes a system description language in
which the user specifies the components that constitute the
system and the manner in which they are connected. The
TRNSYS library includes many of the components commonly
found in thermal and electrical energy systems, as well as
component routines to handle input of weather data or other
time-dependent forcing functions and output of simulation
results. TRNSYS is well suited to detailed analyses of any
system whose behaviour is dependent on the passage of time.
Table 2.1 presents the outcome of solar radiation resource
assessment for Bap, Jodhpur. It has been estimated that the
location receives 2241 kWh/m2 Direct Normal Incidence over
the year. The monthly values of global solar radiation, diffuse
radiation and effective sunshine hours at Bap, Jodhpur has also
been given in the Table 2.1. The daily average values of solar
radiation, sunshine hours, effective DNI and associated climatic
parameters especially ambient temperature and prevailing wind
speed have been summarized in Annexure-1.

Table 2.1 Monthly total values of DNI over Bap, Jodhpur with effective sunshine hours
Month Global Solar Diffuse Solar Direct Solar DNI (two axis Effective DNI* Effective
Radiation on Radiation on Radiation on tracking)(kWh/m2) (kWh/m2) Sunshine
Horizontal Horizontal Horizontal Hours (hrs)
(kWh/m2) (kWh/m2) (kWh/m2)
Jan 142 29 113 222 221 289
Feb 154 31 123 215 213 274
Mar 201 46 155 240 239 331
Apr 214 62 151 217 214 330
May 226 79 147 204 202 361
Jun 189 83 106 147 141 269
Jul 146 85 61 83 77 173
Aug 135 88 47 65 56 131
Sep 212 32 179 270 269 326
Oct 171 47 124 208 206 315
Nov 134 39 95 182 179 270
Dec 126 34 93 187 185 273
Total 2050 655 1394 2240 2202 3342
*meeting the performance conditions for selected technology
(Source: TERI analysis using TRNSYS software and METEONORM Database)

6 http://sel.me.wisc.edu/trnsys/

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