Potential and prospects of solar energy in Uttara Kannada, district of Karnataka State, India

Estimation of solar radiation for Uttara Kannada district is done on the basis of solar and other climatological data available at stations located at Kanwar, Honnavar, Shirali, Mangalore, and Goa. We have used Angstrom's equation to estimate global radiation based on 20 years of data at Mangalore and 25 years of data at Goa provided by the India Meteorological Department It is seen that computed and measured values (actual values) of global radiation (GR) agree within the range of 2-5% for most months. Data at Goa and Mangalore have been analyzed in order to improve accuracy and to establish the role of other climatological-parameters, such as mean daily temperature, relative humidity, specific humidity, minimum and maximum temperature, and rainfall. The computed and estimated values are within the range ±5%. With this empirical relationship, GR is estimated (kWh/m2) for Kartar (with 37 years of climatological data), Honnavar (with 50 years of climatological data), and Bhatkal (Shirali, with 15 years of climatological data). Karwar has a GR range of 5.5-6.5 for January-May and is in the range of 4-5 during the monsoon months, July-September, while at Honnavar the GR range during January-May is 5.47-6.5 and is minimum during the monsoon months. This study of the coastal belt of the western Ghats region, demonstrates that good solar energy potential is available in this region during most months of the year. The amount of solar energy that could be harnessed by utilizing 5% of the present wasteland in coastal taluks as a solar collector area, is found to be of the order of 95.72 million kWh