Analysis of solar energy potentials at Nansha Guangzhou

The increasing energy supply is believed to exceed the capacity of three existing thermal power plants at Nansha Guangzhou for the rapid development. Thus constructing an eco-friendly energy structure will be one of the main themes during the region planning in near future. In this study, solar energy resources were assessed theoretically and simulated by PVsyst, PVGIS, Global Solar Atlas, RETScreen and SSE Release 6.0 as well. It drew a conclusion that from 2010 to 2014, sun exposure hour percentage averaged at 41.28% and demonstrated prominent higher from June to November, solar radiation was extremely stable and extremely abundant in this area. Furthermore, simulation results of horizontal irradiation carried out by SSE Release 6.0, PVsyst (based on NASA-SSE) and Global Solar Atlas were much similar, averaged at 3.93 kWh/m 2 /day; results provided by Global Solar Atlas (4.01 kWh/m 2 /day) were more visualized and representative if thinking about the latest database. For another, results calculated by PVGIS (4.22 kWh/m 2 /day) were relatively higher, and that of Meteonorm 6.1 (3.50 kWh/m 2 /day) were relatively conservative. In conclusion, it's feasible to offer stable solar energy supply at Nansha Guangzhou especially in summer and autumn.