Knowledge on solar resources is needed for energy planning. The Tonga Islands are preparing plans for solar energy but it seems that the yearly irradiation reaching these islands is not well-known. How can I get reliable data on solar radiation for this nation?
Maybe you can use this link, for global iradiation to see it.
http://www.3tier.com/static/ttcms/us/images/support/maps/3tier_solar_irradiance.jpg
Thank you. Very helpful. The map does not show the Tonga which is composed of too small islands for this resolution. I took the neigbour islands. Using the color scale, I can read the mean value and compute the yearly average of daily irradiation which is approx. 4.58 kWh/m2.
I think best site for satellite data is :
https://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/sse/sse.cgi?
where u'll find data by lat n long.
All the best
I suggest that you take a look at the SoDa Service (www.soda-is.org) which is a collaborative information system for professionals in solar energy. There are several databases containing solar radiation data in the SoDa Service. NASA-SSE is one of them and covers the whole world from 1983 to 2005. The spatial resolution is very crude: 1°. The Tonga islands are small wrt this resolution. Their characteristic scale is of order of 10 km. However, if the cloud field does not depend upon the presence of the islands, then, the NASA-SSE may provide a first insight.
Thank you. This site is very helpful. This corresponds to the answer by Tarun Aseri. The interface through SoDa is easier to use than that from the eosweb. I find now 5.3 kWh/m2 as an avearge. This is pretty far from the 4.6 from 3Tier.
There is a couple more possible data providers for that part of the world. Contatct us for more details...
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