A climatological estimate of incident solar energy in Tamaulipas, northeastern Mexico

Abstract

An estimation of climatological field sofincident solar energy in Tamaulipas State, northeastern Mexico, is presented. Monthly me an evolution of solar energy in 7automatic meteorology call stations distributed along the State shows that the maximum values generally exceed 500200 Wm2 during fall-winter (NoveFeb), and 700200 Wm2 during spring-summer(May e Aug). An empirical model, whiches¬timates the solar energy as function of other climatic variables (minimum temperature, maximum temperature evaporation, and precipitation) recorded in 165 climatological conventional stations, is used to extend the climatological solar-energy estimate in the study area. The me an values of both measured and estimated solar energy are objectively mapped to fill the observation gaps and reduce the noise associated with in homogeneous statistic sand estimation errors. The highe stvalues of solar energy (w6:7 kWhm2 during the summer and w4:0k Whm2 during the winter) are observed in the high lands, southwestern part of the State, where asthelow estvalues (w5:7k Whm2 during the summer and w2:8kWhm2