First measurements from Mexican solarimetric network and its comparison with the NSRDB

The success of renewable energy projects depends on proper technical and financial planning. This requires the availability of accurate information on the energy resources that can be used by the electric power generation industry. In the case of solar energy in Mexico, different satellite models have been applied throughout the country. However, until a few years ago, there was no solarimetric information with sufficient precision to evaluate these models. Furthermore, variations in altitude and the great variety of climates throughout the territory complicate the measurement of any element of the climate, especially solar radiation. This work makes a comparison between solar irradiance data measured by the Mexican Solarimetric Network (RESOLMEX; Red Solarimétrica Mexicana) and the corresponding irradiance data from the National Solar Radiation Database (NSRDB). We select horizontal global irradiance for the comparison, the root mean square error (RMSE) and Bias error (MBE) were calculated. Despite the climatic differences, both datasets show a good agreement between several stations throughout an annual cycle.