Assessing the Effect of NO2 Pollution on Solar Irradiance

Not only air pollution can affect men’s health, but it can have a detrimental impact on solar irradiance reaching the earth, resulting, for instance, in a decrease of photovoltaic plants energy yield. In this paper a theoretical model is proposed to evaluate the effect of air pollutants on solar irradiance using data measured at ground level. The model has been applied to the case of NO2 pollution in Acerra, a small town near Naples (Italy) where data have been collected for two years. It is found that NO2 has a negligible effect on solar budget, at least with respect to other pollutants such as PM2.5.