Measurement and Analysis of Solar Energy Resources in Korea

The objective of this study is in preparation of engineering data to meet the needs of industry, engineers, researchers and government in the application of solar radiation data, models, and assessments, as required to develop, design, deploy, and operate energy conservation and solar energy conversion systems. Owing to the world-wide environmental issue and the unbalance on energy demands-offers, it is inevitable to conduct the research and development on clean alternative energy resources. The solar energy resource is recognized as one of the alternatives. A preparation for basic data should, therefore, arise for the extensive utilization of solar energy. Engineering solar data measured for at least 30-years period should be needed for solar energy and energy conservation applications. These data should contain hourly averages of global horizontal, direct normal, and diffuse horizontal radiation with hourly observations of other meteorological parameters such as sky cover, temperature, humidity, and wind speed. However, collection of reasonable solar data has merely been carried out for global horizontal solar radiation since 1982 and direct normal solar radiation since 1990 in Korea. It still requires the considerable effort and time to secure the reliability and to standardize the solar data. In parallel, the related techniques are to be developed such as data quality assessments and control, missing data and inconsistent data treatments, inter- and extra-polation techniques for the intermediate region among the whether stations. Global horizontal and direct normal solar radiation data of 16 locations in Korea are provided.