ANALYSIS OF SOLAR ENERGY RESOURCES IN SOUTHERN POLAND FOR PHOTOVOLTAIC APPLICATIONS

The article presents an analysis of the resources and the structure of the solar energy in the area of Southern Poland on the basis of complete meteorological data from the AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow in 2009. An analysis attempt of its use for photovoltaic conversion using different modules with different spectral characteristics of absorbers was made. These latest methods for characterizing the structure of solar energy resources such as: distributions throughout the year: sky clearness or cloudiness indexes, the average values of photon energy (APE) and the contents of the useful fraction (UF) of the solar spectrum, are not yet widely known and used as in Poland and in other EU countries, despite the fact that most accurately determine the spectral matching factor for the chosen photovoltaic module. Due to the need for a very expensive measuring equipment, are used only by a few laboratories in the European Union, such as CREST (Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology) in the UK. The article presents - developed and used in the Opole University - a new low-cost method for determining of the spectrum with the use of above-mentioned indexes, including APE and UF, without buying an expensive spectroradiometer, which gives comparable results.