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Lecture - 6 - Solar Energy

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Lecture - 6 - Solar Energy

Uploaded by

ahmedkhamayseh43
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Environmental Characteristics

Chapter 2
The most obvious apparent motion of the sun is that it moves daily in an arc across
the sky, reaching its highest point at midday. As winter becomes spring and then
summer, the sunrise and sunset points move gradually northward along the horizon.
In the Northern Hemisphere, the days get longer as the sun rises earlier and sets
later each day and the sun’s path gets higher in the sky. On June 21 the sun is at
its most northerly position with respect to the earth.

Dr. Awni Alkhazaleh


This is called the summer solstice and during this day the daytime is at a
maximum. Six months later, on December 21, the winter solstice, the reverse is
true and the sun is at its most southerly position (see Figure 2.4). In the middle of
the 6-month range, on March 21 and September 21, the length of the day is equal
to the length of the night. These are called spring and fall equinoxes, respectively.
The summer and winter solstices are the opposite in the Southern Hemisphere;
that is, summer solstice is on December 21 and winter solstice is on June 21. It
should be noted that all these dates are approximate and that there are small
variations (difference of a few days) from year to year.

In the Ptolemaic sense, the sun is constrained to move with 2 degrees of freedom
on the celestial sphere; therefore, its position with respect to an observer on earth
can be fully described by means of two astronomical angles, the solar altitude (α)
and the solar azimuth (z).

Dr. Awni Alkhazaleh


As shown in Figure 2.3 the earth axis of rotation (the polar axis) is always inclined at
an angle of 23.45 from the ecliptic axis, which is normal to the ecliptic plane. The
ecliptic plane is the plane of orbit of the earth around the sun. As the earth rotates
around the sun it is as if the polar axis is moving with respect to the sun. The solar
declination is the angular distance of the sun’s rays north (or south) of the equator,
north declination designated as positive. As shown in Figure 2.5 it is the angle
between the sun–earth centerline and the projection of this line on the equatorial
plane. Declinations north of the equator (summer in the Northern Hemisphere) are
positive, and those south are negative. Figure 2.6 shows the declination during the
equinoxes and the solstices. As can be seen, the declination ranges from 0° at the
spring equinox to +23.45 at the summer solstice, 0° at the fall equinox, and -23.45
at the winter solstice. The variation of the solar declination throughout the year is
shown in Figure 2.7. The declination, d, in degrees for any day of the year (N) can be
calculated approximately by the equation

Dr. Awni Alkhazaleh


Dr. Awni Alkhazaleh
Dr. Awni Alkhazaleh
Dr. Awni Alkhazaleh
- Hour angle, h
The hour angle, h, of a point on the earth’s surface is defined as the angle through
which the earth would turn to bring the meridian of the point directly under the
sun

The hour angle in degrees is:


h= ±0:25 (Number of minutes from local solar noon) where the plus sign applies
to afternoon hours and the minus sign to morning hours

The hour angle can also be obtained from the AST; that is, the corrected local
solar time:

Dr. Awni Alkhazaleh


Dr. Awni Alkhazaleh

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