Assessment of the quality of satellite derived irradiance data for Rwanda by comparison with data from a fleet of automated ground stations
Abstract
Satellite data is a worldwide available data source, quality in regions with dense networks (eg. Europe, North America) well known as less data for comparison for central Africa. Here, analysis of Satellite data source enhanced ground data now offered by Rwanda Environment Management authority (REMA) network. REMA has installed around 22 Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) in Rwanda (surface area of Rwanda ~26000 km2). Solar irradiance data are available since end 2013 with a time resolution of 5min. After passing through a quality check, a first analysis of this data base is done by the investigation of the applicability of standard models of both, their probability distribution and autocorrelation characteristics performed for temporal resolutions of 1day, 1h and 15min. As currently time synchronous ground and satellite derived data sets are missing these data are used here for but a first qualitative comparison to the Satellite derived data available
Keywords
Solar irradiance, Satellite derived data, Automatic weather station