skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Implementing Best Practices for Data Quality Assessment of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Solar Resource and Meteorological Assessment Project

Conference ·
OSTI ID:1043798

Effective solar radiation measurements for research and economic analyses require a strict protocol for maintenance, calibration, and documentation to minimize station down-time and data corruption. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Concentrating Solar Power: Best Practices Handbook for the Collection and Use of Solar Resource Data (1) includes guidelines for operating a solar measure-ment station. This paper describes a suite of automated and semi-automated routines based on the best practices hand-book as developed for the National Renewable Energy La-boratory Solar Resource and Meteorological Assessment Project. These routines allow efficient inspection and data flagging to alert operators of conditions that require imme-diate attention. Although the handbook is targeted for con-centrating solar power applications, the quality-assessment procedures described are generic and should benefit many solar measurement applications. The routines use data in one-minute measurement resolution, as suggested by the handbook, but they could be modified for other time scales.

Research Organization:
National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office
DOE Contract Number:
AC36-08GO28308
OSTI ID:
1043798
Report Number(s):
NREL/CP-5500-55075; TRN: US201213%%475
Resource Relation:
Conference: Presented at the 40th ASES National Solar Conference 2011 (Solar 2011), 17-20 May 2011, Raleigh, North Carolina; Related Information: See CP-5500-50897 for preprint
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English