Predictive Performance of Hargreaves Model in Estimating Solar Radiation in Yola, Adamawa State Nigeria Using Minimum Climatological Data

Abstract

Mathematical models have been very useful in reducing challenges encountered by researchers due to the inability of having solar radiation data or lack of instrumental sites at every point on the Earth.  This work aimed at investigating the prediction performance of Hargreaves-Samani’s model in estimating global solar radiation (GSR) out of the many other empirical models so far formulated for this purpose. This model basically uses maximum and minimum temperature data and basically used in mid-latitudes. The paper attempts to assess the predictive performance of Hargreaves-Samani’s model in the Savanna region using Yola as a case study. Estimated values of GSR from one month data adopted from the Meteorological station of the Department of Geography, Federal University of Technology, Yola, Nigeria was used for this purpose. Using this model shows a 95% index of agreement (IA) with the observed values; which suggests a good model performance and can also be used in estimating global solar radiation in the Savanna region particularly in areas with little or no such climatic data.