Comparative analysis of transposition models applied to photovoltaic systems using meteonorm and NASA SSE databases

Global environment concerns and increasing energy demand are expanding interests in renewable energy sources such as photovoltaic systems. An optimized application of these systems requires the use of accurate climatic and irradiation data. Most of the available data sources provide irradiation values only on the horizontal plane. These data must be converted to a tilted plane in order to estimate a more accurate value of the energy produced. To process that conversion there are many mathematical models available in the literature, such as Perez's model and Hay's model. The impact of these methods on the energy generated is compared in this study, also the accuracy of the Meteonorm 7.1 and NASA SSE databases is investigated for the location of the Tanquinho Power Plant in Campinas, Brazil. As a result of the analysis, the Meteonorm database presented more accurate solarimetric data for the considered location. Also, the Perez's method had an absolute error of 9.97% while Hay's method showed an error of 10.11%. As a conclusion, the NASA database is indicated to be used to estimate the energy generated by photovoltaic systems installed in the studied area. Additionally, to obtain a more accurate irradiation data on the tilted plane, the Perez's method is more precise.