A Forum run by Enthusiasts of MidNite Solar

Rag Chew => Off Topic Discussions => Topic started by: xsnrg on January 03, 2015, 01:36:38 PM

Title: New toy: solar radiation sensor
Post by: xsnrg on January 03, 2015, 01:36:38 PM
Last night I finished up installing the solar radiation sensor on my weather station.  It will be fun to track and share...

If anyone is interested, my weather page:  http://www.howardweb.org/weather (http://www.howardweb.org/weather)

and in particular, the solar radiation page:  http://www.howardweb.org/weather/solar (http://www.howardweb.org/weather/solar)

Jim
Title: Re: New toy: solar radiation sensor
Post by: Doug on January 05, 2015, 11:17:38 AM
Very Nice! but that forecast is cold.
Title: Re: New toy: solar radiation sensor
Post by: xsnrg on January 05, 2015, 08:33:06 PM
yessir it is... but at least it is cloudy.   :P
Title: Re: New toy: solar radiation sensor
Post by: Westbranch on January 05, 2015, 08:38:03 PM
We could almost swap forecasts, yet  at opposite sites...

http://weather.gc.ca/city/pages/bc-76_metric_e.html
Title: Re: New toy: solar radiation sensor
Post by: boB on January 06, 2015, 05:33:49 PM
Quote from: Westbranch on January 05, 2015, 08:38:03 PM
We could almost swap forecasts, yet  at opposite sites...

http://weather.gc.ca/city/pages/bc-76_metric_e.html

Is Williams Lake, BC  where you live ?   Pretty neat place !

boB
Title: Re: New toy: solar radiation sensor
Post by: Westbranch on January 06, 2015, 06:01:03 PM
boB, Yes, living in WL Lk, but to avoid confusion, Avatar is from our new build at the lake
Title: Re: New toy: solar radiation sensor
Post by: xsnrg on January 15, 2015, 12:00:50 AM
How clouds take a bite out of a sunny morning

Title: Re: New toy: solar radiation sensor
Post by: RossW on January 15, 2015, 04:44:19 AM
Quote from: xsnrg on January 15, 2015, 12:00:50 AM
How clouds take a bite out of a sunny morning

Don't they just! That's very similar to what I'm doing here too.
I use an Apogee Instruments pyranometer as my sensor, and plot it thus:
(http://ranges.albury.net.au/environment/insolation.avg.gif)

I read it every second, but record and plot every 5 mins.
The blue (area) is the average over the 5 mins.
The red line is the peak power during the 5 minutes.
The green line is my calculated (theoretical) power available at this lat/long at this time of day on this day of the year.
The black line is an cosine-adjusted value of what the incident radiation would be if I could point my panels straight at the sun (and since most of my arrays are on trackers, that's me).

I do some more calculations based on what I am actually measuring vs what "should be available" to know if I have a problem, or have "opportunity power" available.