Assessment of Global Solar Radiation over Rwanda

This paper aims to estimating the global solar radiation in Rwanda. We mainly treated the particular case of Kigali where meteorological data records (sunshine duration, temperature, pressure and humidity) over a period of 20 years (1974 to 1993) are available. As solar radiation data are not available in Rwanda, meteorological models (MRM) were applied and sunshine duration measurements played a particular role. The MRM based-results were validated by satellite datasets measurements done over a 10-year period (1984 to 1993); and a good agreement between these two approaches was confirmed. Finally and referring to the five representative sites, a recommendable solar data information per region was adopted. We found out that the monthly averaged global solar radiation varies between about 4.3 to 5.2 kWh / m2. day over Rwanda, a hilly and mountainous tropical country.