Determination of Turkey's solar exergy potential and creation of an exergy map

There has been a continuous increase in energy demand worldwide due to the growing human population and rapid industrialization process. This increasing demand raises serious concerns for the energy sector. Currently, more than 80% of the world's energy needs are met by traditional fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas and oil. Fossil fuels are in limited supply and have a negative impact on environmental issues such as air pollution, climate change and ecosystem destruction. In this context, the sustainable growth of future generations depends on moving away from fossil fuels and towards more environmentally friendly and sustainable energy sources. Renewable energy sources have unlimited potential and are derived from natural resources such as solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal energy and biomass. Since the energy analysis based on the first law of thermodynamics is insufficient to see the maximum amount of energy available, in this study, exergy analysis based on the second law of thermodynamics was performed to see the maximum available solar energy potential. Thus, it is seen how efficient solar radiation is according to its potential, as well as how much more work can be obtained from solar radiation. For this purpose, 22 years of average meteorological data from NASA were used to calculate the maximum availability of solar energy in Turkey (26°- 45° east meridians, 36°- 42° north parallels). Using these data, maps of the solar exergy potential in the horizontal plane and three different inclination angles (21°, 39° and 57°) according to the latitude angle of Turkey were created separately for each month.