Effects of Aerosols and Clouds on the Levels of Surface Solar Radiation and Solar Energy in Cyprus

Abstract

Cyprus plans to drastically increase the share of renewable energy sources from 13.9% in 2020 to 22.9% in 2030. Solar energy can play a key role in the effort to fulfil this goal. The potential for production of solar energy over the island is much higher than most of European territory because of the low latitude of the island and the nearly cloudless summers. In this study, high quality and fine resolution satellite retrievals of aerosols and dust, from the newly developed MIDAS climatology, and information for clouds from CM SAF are used in order to quantify the effects of aerosols, dust, and clouds on the levels of surface solar radiation for 2004–2017 and the corresponding financial loss for different types of installations for the production of solar energy. Surface solar radiation climatology has also been developed based on the above information. Ground-based measurements were also incorporated to study the contribution of different species to the aerosol mixture and the effects of day-to-day variability of aerosols on SSR. Aerosols attenuate 5–10% of the annual global horizontal irradiation and 15–35% of the annual direct normal irradiation, while clouds attenuate 25–30% and 35–50% respectively. Dust is responsible for 30–50% of the overall attenuation by aerosols and is the main regulator of the variability of total aerosol. All-sky annual global horizontal irradiation increased significantly in the period of study by 2%, which was mainly attributed to changes in cloudiness.

15-Year Analysis of Direct Effects of Total and Dust Aerosols in Solar Radiation/Energy Over the Mediterranean Basin

“…The countries around the Mediterranean basin, apart from their prolonged sunshine durations, also experience high levels of aerosol loads, as already mentioned, mainly composed by mineral particles. In the recent study by Fountoulakis et al [30] it was found that for Cyprus in summer the GHI attenuation by aerosol is almost the same by this from clouds, while for the DNI components it is 7-8 times greater. In the same study, they found that 30-50% out of the overall attenuation by aerosols is attributed to dust, based for their analysis on a pure dust product (MIDAS; [31]).…”

“…Integrating over sunlight hours the 1h instantaneous values of total irradiances, daily Global Horizontal Irradiations (GHI) and Direct Normal Irradiations (DNI) components (in MJ/m 2 ) were calculated and those values were post -corrected for the Earth-Sun distance, and for the surface elevation following the methodology described in Fountoulakis et al [30].…”

“…Over most of the globe the availability of downwelling surface solar irradiance (DSSI) depends mainly on attenuation by clouds, but the role of aerosols is also significant, and under certain conditions can be dominant (e.g. [29,30]). The countries around the Mediterranean basin, apart from their prolonged sunshine durations, also experience high levels of aerosol loads, as already mentioned, mainly composed by mineral particles.…”

“…Based on MODIS AOD product, a new DOD dataset was generated, the ModIs Dust AeroSol -MIDAS dataset [31], enhancing the existing dust aerosol monitoring capabilities. Considering its global coverage at fine spatial and temporal resolution, over a long period (2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017), this dataset is suitable for dust climatological studies, among others [30,35,36]. Another tool for dust monitoring, on a frequent basis and for extended time periods, relies on atmospheric models simulating aerosols' life cycle, whereas via the assimilation of quality assured observations quite reliable numerical products are also available from reanalysis datasets [37][38][39].…”

Simulation of the impact of the atmospheric weather state on the efficiency of functioning of solar thermal and power plants

“…    ; отвечают потокам излучения для второго слоя. Используя соотношения (17)(18)(19), построена и реализована точная вычислительная схема отраженного и пропущенного потоков для многослойной неоднородной по высоте атмосферы. При наличии подстилающей поверхности с альбедо q, альбедо системы «подстилающая поверхность -атмосфера» в зависимости от зенитного угла солнца θ0 определяется соотношением:…”