Solar radiation data is an essential prerequisite for the designing, sizing and performing evaluation of any solar energy conversion system in any part of the globe, even though solar radiation data are not readily available for many location of many developing countries such as Nigeria, hence the needs to rely on empirical models. There are many developed models across the globe for the estimation of solar radiation, to identify the optimum performing model for locations such as Katsina requires the comparism between the various models. In this study, performance evaluation of six selected models for the estimation of global solar radiation was carried out for Katsina location, Nigeria. The models were formed from different combinations of some meteorological parameters (sunshine hours, relative humidity and temperatures) obtained for a period of ten years (2006-2015) from Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET). Monthly average extraterrestrial global solar radiation was evaluated for the locations. The data was analysed to find the empirical constants for all the selected models in the locations. Estimated values of global solar radiation was obtained from the six selected models. The estimated values were then compared using statistical parameters (mean bias error (MBE), mean percentage error (MPE), root mean square error (RMSE) and coefficient of determinant (R 2). Model 6 was found to be the optimum model for Katsina because it fitted the measured data most for each month of year based on various statistical parameters used for the analysis.

Most of the wind energy conversion systems are failing in many developing countries such as Nigeria due to poor and un-appropriate site selection. Ten years (2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010) daily average wind speed data measured at 10m height for Minna (9.6°N, 6.6°E and 251m) were obtained from Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) and the characteristics of the three small scale wind energy conversion systems with power rating of 1, 1.5 and 3.0 kW obtained from the manufacturers websites were used in this study for the performance evaluation of three selected wind energy conversion system (WECS). The performance of the selected WECS were compared using the capacity factors obtained for the turbines from the algorithms developed, that combine the daily average wind speed and standard deviation for the location with the selected turbines characteristics provided by the manufacturers. The annual energy output for the WECS were found to be 1.37MWh, 1.23MWh and 2.53MWh with corresponding capacity factor of 18.8%, 11.2% and 8.4% respectively from e3001 (1kW), Ge-Power System 1.5SL (1.5kW) and Gv-3kW (3.0 kW). The e30001 (1kW) was observed to performed better with capacity factor of 18.8% as against 11.2% and 8.4% for Ge-Power system 1.5SL (1.5kW) and Gv-3kW (3.0 kW) respectively for Minna location.