CONSTRUCTION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF A PYRANOMETER USING LOCALLY AVAILABLE MATERIALS FOR GLOBAL SOLAR RADIATION MEASUREMENT (original) (raw)

The high cost and maintenance of imported equipment for solar radiation measurement makes the equipment a scarce commodity in Meteorological and Research Centers in Nigeria and other Developing Countries in the world. In order to alleviate this problem, a pyranometer for global solar radiation measurement was therefore developed locally at Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki. The pyranometer consists of Photodiode, electrical wires, transparent plastic material and a digital multimeter. The calibration of the constructed pyranometer was done on a clear sky day, Thursday 18th August, 2011. The calibration constant for the Eistrain Lungs Pyranometer, Spektron-100(GN01-30-93) Reference Pyranometer is 7.3 x 10-5VW-1m-2. Hence, using the average output of the Reference and Constructed pyranometers for two hours (12:00pm to 2:00pm) on sunny that day 18th August, 2011, 55.39mV and 49.46mV respectively. The calibration constant of the Constructed Pyranometer was obtained as 6.58 x 10-5VW-1m-2. The maximum irradiances of 895.70W/m2 and 1043.83W/m2 were recorded with the Constructed and Reference Pyranometers respectively and these occurred on 06/09/2011. We are happy to remark that there was no significant difference between the performances of the Constructed and the Reference pyranometers.