Intermittency study of high frequency global solar radiation sequences under a tropical climate

•We have shown, using several methods, that solar radiation time series have multifractal properties.•The scaling exponents which are extracted characterize the fluctuations at all scales (from 1 s to 3 h) and all intensities.•We have chosen the Hilbert spectral analysis for the final estimation of scaling exponents, but we showed that globally all methods are in agreement.•The log-stable multifractal model was chosen to quantify the curvature of the scaling exponent.

A good knowledge of the intermittency of global solar radiation is crucial for selecting the location of a solar power plant and predicting the generation of electricity. This paper presents a multifractal analysis study of 367 daily global solar radiation sequences measured with a sampling rate of 1 Hz over one year at Guadeloupean Archipelago (French West Indies) located at 16°15′N latitude and 60°30′W longitude. The mean power spectrum computed follows a power law behavior close to the Kolmogorov spectrum. The intermittent and multifractal properties of global solar radiation data are investigated using several methods. Under this basis, a characterization for each day using three multifractal parameters is proposed.