Dataset for the Determination of Solar Photovoltaic Energy Potential for Selected State Capitals in Southwest, Nigeria Using Artificial Neural Network

This dataset consists of nine spreadsheets in CSV format. They contain historical weather data and were obtained from Solcast and NiMet (Nigerian Metrological Agency). The dataset includes several weather and solar energy variables for four state capitals (Abeokuta, Akure, Ibadan, and Ado-Ekiti) in the Southwest zone of Nigeria. Air temperature (air_temp) measures how hot or cold the air is, usually in degrees Celsius, while dewpoint temperature (dewpoint_temp) indicates the temperature at which air moisture condenses into water, showing how humid the air is. Diffuse horizontal irradiance (dhi) represents scattered sunlight reaching the surface after being diffused by clouds or particles, and global horizontal irradiance (ghi) measures the total sunlight, both direct and scattered, received on a horizontal surface, making it essential for solar energy analysis. Relative humidity (relative_humidity) expresses the amount of moisture in the air as a percentage of its maximum capacity at that temperature. Wind speed at 10 meters (wind_speed_10m) records how fast the wind blows at a height of 10 meters above the ground.
For the NiMet data, the meteorological parameters consist of YEAR, MO, DY, and HR represent the date and time of each observation, corresponding to the year, month, day, and hour. ALLSKY_SFC_UVA indicates the all-sky surface ultraviolet radiation (UVA) received at the ground level and T2M, T2MDEW, T2MWET, and RH2M refer to the air temperature, the dew point, wet-bulb temperatures, and relative humidity measured at 2 meters above the surface, respectively. WS10M is the wind speed measured at 10 metres above the ground, indicating the strength of surface-level winds.

The files included are:
1. nimet_abeokuta_hourly.csv: Data obtained from the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) specifically for the city of Abeokuta, Ogun State
2. nimet_akure_hourly.csv: Data obtained from the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) specifically for the city of Akure, Ondo State
3. nimet_ekiti_hourly.csv: Data obtained from the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) specifically for Ekiti State, Nigeria
4. nimet_ibadan_hourly.csv: Data obtained from the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) specifically for the city of Ibadan, Oyo State
5. solacast_abeokuta_2010_data.csv: Historical weather data for Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria, obtained from Solacast, covering the year 2010.
6. solacast_ekiti_2010_data.csv: Historical weather data for Ekiti State, Nigeria, obtained from Solacast, covering the year 2010
7. solacast_ibadan_2010_data.csv: Historical weather data for Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria, obtained from Solacast, covering the year 2010
8. solcast_akure_2010_data.csv: Historical weather data for Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria, obtained from Solacast, covering the year 2010.
9. solcast_2020_all_data.csv: Combined weather and solar irradiance data, historical for the four cities, obtained from Solcast for the year 2020.