Progress On Updating The 1961 1990 National Solar Radiation Database

Download or read book Progress on Updating the 1961-1990 National Solar Radiation Database written by and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 8 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1961-1990 National Solar Radiation Data Base (NSRDB) provides a 30-year climate summary and solar characterization of 239 locations throughout the United States. Over the past several years, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has received numerous inquiries from a range of constituents as to whether an update of the database to include the 1990s will be developed. However, there are formidable challenges to creating an update of the serially complete station-specific database for the 1971-2000 period. During the 1990s, the National Weather Service changed its observational procedures from a human-based to an automated system, resulting in the loss of important input variables to the model used to complete the 19611990 NSRDB. As a result, alternative techniques are required for an update that covers the 1990s. This paper examines several alternative approaches for creating this update and describes preliminary NREL plans for implementing the update.