Global solar radiation estimate in mato grosso do sul summer – Brazil

Solar radiation is a very important meteorological component of the hydrological, energetic, architectonic and agro environmental processes. However, the instruments that are responsible for their measurement have a high cost of acquest and maintenance. Therefore, empirical models have been developed for estimating the solar radiation and then, reducing costs. The objective of this research was to evaluate the efficiency of four empirical models of global solar radiation estimate (Annandale, Bristow-Campbell, Hargreaves-Samani and Weiss), applied to the cities of Amambai, Dourados, Itaquiraí, Ivinhema, Jutí, Rio Brilhante and Ponta Porã, MS state - Brazil. The climate data used by empirical equations were collected by automatic weather stations located in each of these cities and belonging to the network of meteorological stations of Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia (INMET) between the years 2017 and 2018. The values that were obtained by the estimation models were compared with solar radiation collected by the weather station and thus, the efficiency of each model was evaluated. The square root of the mean square error, correlation coefficient and concordance index. Only in the cities of Itaquiraí and Ivinhema one of the four models was recommended, which is the Bristow-Campbell. In others cities, none of the models can be applied for estimating the solar radiation, because the results of the methods were not satisfactory.