The Impact of Water Surface Albedo on Incident Solar Insolation of a Collector Surface

This paper presents the modelling of the total insolation on a collecting surface using a varying water surface albedo model to approximate the reflected radiation. The effect of the water surface on the reflected radiation for a solar collector inclined at a fixed tilt optimum slope is investigated. The annual insolation is approximated to demonstrate the extent to which the energy differences exist in using the varying water surface albedo when compared to the default albedo in floating solar modelling. The results show that for a floating solar system, the annual energy approximation from using the varying water surface albedo is lower in comparison to the usage of the default albedo.