Estimation of global, diffuse and beam radiation on the south oriented tilted surfaces for the region 'İç Anadolu' in Turkey

In general, energy is defined as the ability to do work. Work is any activity that produces change or movement within a system. Originally, human activity was fueled exclusively by our own physical energy. But in time, humanity began to cultivate external energy sources, learning to employ work animals, firewood, hydraulic mills, and wind power. In the 1700s, for the first time in human history, fossil fuels became a significant energy source, thanks to England's Industrial Revolution. In 1776, Englishman James Watt perfected the steam engine, based on Thomas Newcomen's earlier invention for draining coal mines. The Watt engine removed a significant barrier to coal production and defined a new era of mechanical innovation. Access to coal fuel was central to the development of machine-based production and to the industrialization of Great Britain and other growing nations, namely the USA, Russia, and France. In the 1800s, global energy demands continued to increase. Political quarrels erupted as a growing number of industrialized countries --France and Germany at the forefront-- searched for new sources of energy. In 1859, commercial oil drilling began in the USA. Oil reserves were subsequently discovered in Russia and other places. And Thomas Edison's 1882 discovery of electricity further increased the interest in energy production. Energy production and consumption continued to expand in the first part of the 20th Century. New inventions like the automobile and engine fire provided new applications for electric and mechanical energy, and the search for fossil fuel reserves intensified. Oil was discovered in Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, among other places, and the growing market for these fuels continued to provoke wars and territorial disputes. Also in the early 20th Century, Einstein discovered his famous E=mc2 formula, suggesting that energy could be produced from mass. This revelation opened a new epoch in the history of energy: the field of nuclear energy. Enrico Fermi became a key figure in this field when he produced the first controlled nuclear reaction in 1942 in Los Alamos, USA. Per-capita energy use remains a key indicator of a country's level of development. The most developed countries can also be seen to practice fundamentally similar energy policies. These global superpowers have tended to eschew exploiting their own natural energy reserves in favor of importing oil from abroad, particularly from the Middle East. However, reliance on imported energy has proven to be a dangerous strategy in recent years due to a succession of crises abroad: the OPEC embargo in 1973, the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Iran-Iraq wars in 1980s, and two Gulf Wars in the 1990s. These events had crippling effects on the world's energy-importing superpowers, prompting them to rethink their existing energy portfolios. Shifting energy policies are also motivated by other factors: For one thing, fossil fuels are environmentally damaging. Also, humans are consuming fossil fuels at a much faster rate than these fuels can be formed in nature. Thus, the dawn of the 21st Century has prompted intense investigation of new ways to obtain, store, and deliver energy. Forward-thinking countries have identified a need to pursue and procure new energy sources that will be cheap, continuous, accessible, and clean. These alternative, renewable energies range from ancient sources such as wind and hydraulic energy to new developments like hydrogen power and biofuel, and also include solar, geothermal, and tidal power. Today, all of these alternative energy sources are gaining popularity in the world at large and in Turkey specifically. Research continues to improve both theoretical and practical approaches to alternative energy systems. Within this context, hydrogen fuel systems have garnered the most attention. But solar energy has also proved significant in terms of its popularity and practical potential. This thesis focuses on solar energy, acknowledging solar radiation as the planet's most fundamental source of fuel (and the original source of fossil fuel). Solar is also the quintessential renewable fuel, since we can expect the sun to continue producing energy for about 1030 years. Because solar energy fuels all biological life, it is also the energetic motor of the natural world. Humans have been channeling solar energy for millennia. In 212 BC Archimedes channeled solar energy to create an apparatus for incinerating Roman ships. In 1839, the French physician Edmond Becquerel discovered the photovoltaic effect, by which a material exposed to light generates an electric current. Also in France, the first solar-powered engine was introduced in 1860, constituting the first commercial use of solar energy. In intervening centuries, solar energy has frequently been used to create heat energy and light energy. Of course, there are some problems with solar energy. Notably, it is very expensive to establish the infrastructure required for mass production and adoption of solar power. And while solar energy is guaranteed to last for millions of billions of years, the availability of solar energy changes according to the seasonal and circadian intervals. Thus, the capture and storage of solar energy is a major problem. Technological progress has addressed many of these issues, however. Costs have been reduced thanks to the discovery of new materials and the scaling of PV production. And progress in related fields, including that of nanotechnology, will continue to increase the viability of solar energy, allowing it to become the most useful alternative fuel going forward. Solar energy is a byproduct of the nuclear fission reactions that occur in the center of the sun. Fission refers to the transformation of hydrogen into helium, which happens via a massive exothermal reaction. The resulting radiation reaches earth's atmosphere as extraterrestrial radiation. The levels of extraterrestrial radiation that xxiv reaches out atmosphere is constant. However, the presence of clouds and other atmospheric elements affects the level of radiation that reach earth's surface. The radiation we receive depends on atmospheric conditions. In addition, the level of radiation on a given surface changes according to the degree of tilt. The radiation that strikes a tilted surface is more intense than the radiation on a horizontal plane. In order to successfully implement solar energy systems, we need to the precise values of solar radiation at different locations, and to understand how these levels of radiation change over time. All of this knowledge is necessary to design solar energy systems to maximize energy production, minimize costs. But not all of these vital details can be measured directly. For instance, while it is possible to directly measure the amount of solar radiation hitting a horizontal surface, it is not possible to directly measure the level of radiation on a tilted surface. Instead, these values must be calculated based on radiation values of a horizontal surface at the same location. Such is the purpose of this thesis. The data and calculations provided herein can be used to understand the optimal tilt and orientation of photovoltaic collectors in Middle-Anatolia. Since the 1800s, successive scientists have made extensive work of exploring and calculating the relationship between radiation levels and surface level tilts. Thus, there exist established algorithms for calculating radiation levels, and using mathematical models has proved to be a cost-efficient way to measure solar radiation. In fact, countries often use these models to understand the potential production of solar energy at specific sites within their territories. Middle-Anatolia ranks third in Turkey in terms of its potential as a solar energy hotspot. Recognizing this potential, the Turkish government recently earmarked funds to establish solar fields in Middle-Anatolia. To understand the region's potential for producing solar energy, we chose to analyze four cities in this region: Ankara, Karaman, Aksaray , and Kayseri. For each of these cities, we used Measured Global Solar Radiation data from MGM to calculate levels of solar radiation at various degrees of tilt, under both isotropic and anisotropic conditions. Ultimately, we calculated radiation levels for tilted surfaces in all four cities, looking at various degrees of tilt: from 30 to 90 degrees in 10-degree increments. While radiation on a horizontal surface has two components (direct radiation and diffuse radiation), radiation on a tilted surface has three components (direct, diffuse, and reflected components). In both cases, the sum of the values of the component radiation types gives the overall value of radiation on a particular surface. The MGM data used in this work consists of hourly measure surface radiation in all four cities over the span of several years. This includes data from Ankara for the years 2010-2013, Karaman for the years 2007-2013, Aksaray for the years 2007-2013, and Kayseri from 2007 to 2010. MGM uses hourly data to calculate the levels of extraterrestrial radiation and the clearness index (Kr=H/H0). This thesis expands upon MGM's existing radiation data to analyze the specific levels of radiation on tilted surfaces, using formulas developed over time by a number of different scientists. We calculate global radiation values on tilted surfaces in all four cities, and examine seven degrees of tilt: 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90. Because the radiation values change according to isotropic and anisotropic conditions, we provide calculations for both conditions. Finally, we visualize this data, using this analysis as a point for our conclusion. xxv