New Technique for Global Solar Radiation Forecast using Bees Algorithm (RESEARCH NOTE)

Estimation of solar radiation is the most important parameter for various solar energy systems. Expensive devices are required to achieve the amount of solar radiation for a special region, therefore different models have been proposed by researchers to estimate the solar radiation that obviate using such devices. Nonlinear nature and excessive dependence on the meteorological parameters of these models, caused the researchers look for quickly and efficiently methods to solve them and find solar radiation for a specific region. In this paper, a new method based on the Angstrom model is introduced to estimate the monthly average daily global solar radiation on a horizontal surface by Bees Algorithm as a heuristic and population-based search technique implemented in MATLAB software. The experimental coefficients for Angstrom model are calculated for six different climate regions of Iran using proposed program written in the software environment. The comparison between results obtained from the proposed method and other techniques proves the efficiency and predominance of the new method to find the more accurate amount of solar radiation.