Time series SARIMA models for average monthly solar radiation in Malaysia

Modeling and forecasting solar radiation data give a great use for the development of solar energy in Malaysia. In this paper, the Box-Jenkins approach was applied to solar radiation data from two different locations in Malaysia, which are Mersing and Kuala Terengganu. The corrected Akaike Information Criterion (AICc) is used to compare different Box-Jenkins models that are considered. The purpose of the study is to forecast the potential use of solar radiation to produce energy. The seasonal moving average model of order 1, SARIMA (0,0,0)×(0,1,1)12 was suitable to model solar radiation data in Kuala Terengganu and the Mersing. Ljung-Box statistic was used in diagnostic checking, which showed that the models were adequate.