The paper estimates solar radiation in the Southern areas of Pakistan using the climate data of thirty years (1981–2010) for 25 meteorological stations located in the three provinces of Pakistan, i.e., Baluchistan, Punjab, and Sindh. For this purpose, five different radiation models are designed: Sunshine hour-based model, Temperature-based model, Cloud-based model, Meteorological parameters-based model, and Meteorological and Geographical Parameters-based Model. The forecasting efficiency of these models is evaluated using mean predicted errors and Theil inequality coefficient. The results reveal that the Meteorological and Geographical parameters-based models are the most accurate methods for estimating solar radiation in Pakistan. Forecasting efficiency results show that the estimates of solar radiation of all the models is much better for Baluchistan as compared to Punjab and Sindh.
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