Clear sky irradiances using REST2 and MODIS

摘要

In order to simulate historical Global Horizontal Irradiance (GHI) and Direct Normal Irradiance (DNI) solar resources, a method using MODIS level 3 (L3) daily satellite data as input to the REST2 clear sky model is presented to derive clear sky solar irradiance for California. MODIS L3 precipitable water (PW) and especially aerosol optical depth (AOD) were found to be significantly biased and were therefore calibrated based on AOD and PW from Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) ground monitoring sites.