Comparison of the sensitivities and accuracies of optoelectronic transducers for solar irradiance measurement

Abstract

This paper compares the sensitivities and accuracies of four different optoelectronic transducers in measuring solar irradiance for the fabrication of portable and low-cost pyranometers. Trans-impedance conditioning circuits were designed for two phototransistors (BP103 and SFH3310) and two photodiodes (BPW21 and BPW34). The Arduino Mega 2560 was used as an interface between the analogue signal produced by the conditioning circuits and the digital output ports. The transducers with a standard pyranometer RSRA_05V were arranged on a vero board and exposed to the sun. Statistical analysis of the experimental results produced the least root mean square error value of 6.58794 Wm−2 for phototransistor BP103 during the dry season followed by 13.35216 Wm−2 for phototransistor SFH3310 during the dry season. The correlation coefficients of BPW21, BPW34, BP103, and SFH3310 with the standard pyranometer are 0.9489, 0.9916, 0.9976, and 0.9905, respectively. The experimental results obtained from the phototransistors BP103 and SFH3310 strongly correlated with those of the standard pyranometer coupled with lower root mean square error and mean bias error values than those of the photodiodes. Thus, the phototransistors BP103 and SFH3310 are more accurate and effective for measuring solar irradiance. This study contributes to the development of low-cost and accurate solar radiation meters.