Fountoulakis, I.; Kosmopoulos, P.; Papachristopoulou, K.; Raptis, I.-P.; Mamouri, R.-E.; Nisantzi, A.; Gkikas, A.; Witthuhn, J.; Bley, S.; Moustaka, A.; Buehl, J.; Seifert, P.; Hadjimitsis, D.G.; Kontoes, C.; Kazadzis, S. Effects of Aerosols and Clouds on the Levels of Surface Solar Radiation and Solar Energy in Cyprus. Remote Sens.2021, 13, 2319.
Fountoulakis, I.; Kosmopoulos, P.; Papachristopoulou, K.; Raptis, I.-P.; Mamouri, R.-E.; Nisantzi, A.; Gkikas, A.; Witthuhn, J.; Bley, S.; Moustaka, A.; Buehl, J.; Seifert, P.; Hadjimitsis, D.G.; Kontoes, C.; Kazadzis, S. Effects of Aerosols and Clouds on the Levels of Surface Solar Radiation and Solar Energy in Cyprus. Remote Sens. 2021, 13, 2319.
Fountoulakis, I.; Kosmopoulos, P.; Papachristopoulou, K.; Raptis, I.-P.; Mamouri, R.-E.; Nisantzi, A.; Gkikas, A.; Witthuhn, J.; Bley, S.; Moustaka, A.; Buehl, J.; Seifert, P.; Hadjimitsis, D.G.; Kontoes, C.; Kazadzis, S. Effects of Aerosols and Clouds on the Levels of Surface Solar Radiation and Solar Energy in Cyprus. Remote Sens.2021, 13, 2319.
Fountoulakis, I.; Kosmopoulos, P.; Papachristopoulou, K.; Raptis, I.-P.; Mamouri, R.-E.; Nisantzi, A.; Gkikas, A.; Witthuhn, J.; Bley, S.; Moustaka, A.; Buehl, J.; Seifert, P.; Hadjimitsis, D.G.; Kontoes, C.; Kazadzis, S. Effects of Aerosols and Clouds on the Levels of Surface Solar Radiation and Solar Energy in Cyprus. Remote Sens. 2021, 13, 2319.
Abstract
Cyprus plans to drastically increase the share of renewable energy sources from 13.9% in 2020 to 22.9% in 2030. Solar energy can play a key role in the effort to fulfil this goal. The potential for production of solar energy over the island is much higher than most of European territory because of the low latitude of the island and the nearly cloudless summers. In this study, high quality and fine resolution satellite retrievals of aerosols and dust, from the newly developed MIDAS climatology, as well as information for clouds from CMSAF are used in order to quantify the effects of aerosols, dust, and clouds on the levels of surface solar radiation (SSR) and the corresponding financial loss for different types of installations for production of solar energy. An SSR climatology has been also developed based on the above information. Ground-based measurements were also incorporated to study the contribution of different species to the aerosol mixture and the effects of day-to-day variability of aerosols on SSR. Aerosols attenuate 5 – 10% of annual GHI and 15 – 35% of annual DNI, while clouds attenuate ~25 – 30% and 35 – 50% respectively. Dust is responsible for 30 – 50% of the overall attenuation by aerosols.
Keywords
solar energy; dust; aerosol; clouds; Cyprus
Subject
Environmental and Earth Sciences, Atmospheric Science and Meteorology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.