Prefeasibility Study of a Solar Power Plant Project and Optimization of a Meteorological Station Performance

Abstract

A prefeasibility study of a solar power plant project was carried out in order to study and search the best location toinstall a concentrated solar power plant according to a tender with the Algerian electricity company “SPE” following aspecific criteria and methodology in order to obtain a site with a maximum possible irradiation along with othereconomic constraints. Normally, eleven years of solar irradiation data from an on-ground weather station is needed forsite assessment, such data are not available, hence the typical meteorological year irradiation based on satelliteimagery results is needed in order to have the accurate value, therefore we can give the right evaluation for the sitecandidate. Additionally, an analysis of a weather measurement station was carried out to ensure the properfunctioning of the weather data reception and analysis processes, and thus to optimize the algorithm of a data loggerin order to get the right measurement with a minimum error. The correction algorithm was developed by weatherscientists and was added to the data logger main program.