An Assessment of Diffuse Solar Energy Models in Terms of Estimation Accuracy.

Abstract: This paper presents models for diffuse solar energy on a horizontal surface for main five sites in Malaysia. The diffuse solar energy is modeled using linear, non-linear and ANN models. Three statistical values are used to evaluate the developed solar energy models, namely, the mean absolute percentage error, MAPE, root mean square error, RMSE and mean bias error, MBE. The results showed that the ANN models are superior compared to the other models in which the MAPE of the ANN model is 1.53%, while the MAPE of the linear and nonlinear models are 4.35% and 3.74%, respectively. The accurate ANN models can therefore be used to predict solar energy in Malaysia and nearby regions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]