Solar radiation climate in Malawi

Recently, Diabaté et al. [Diabaté, L., Blanc, Ph., Wald, L., 2004. Solar climate in Africa. Solar Energy 76, 733–744] created a map of solar radiation climate in Africa using clearness index for 62 sites. They established a solar climate class II located in Malawi and Madagascar. However, their analysis did not include any irradiation data from a site in Malawi. In this study, the solar radiation climate of Malawi has been studied using long-term global radiation data from a local site. The mean monthly (K_tm) and seasonal (K_ts) daily clearness indices for the site were computed. It is observed that K_tm has two maxima in a year (K_tm = 0.58 in May and K_tm = 0.64 in September), in close conformity with findings of Diabaté et al. (2004). Other results are presented and discussed.