Solar and Infrared Radiation Measurements

Written for students and professionals, this reference explores the various types of solar radiation equipment and how to operate them. The book gives the reader a step-by-step approach to the set-up, operation, and maintenance of a solar monitoring station. It provides the background and terminology needed to understand the uses and requirements of various solar and infrared radiometers, and it offers an overview of the various instruments. The authors also discuss the calibration and maintenance necessary for instruments in the lab and in the field, as well as covering the calibration traceability to international standards and measurement uncertainty analyses.

The rather specialized field of solar and infrared radiation measurement has become more and more important in the face of growing demands by the renewable energy and climate change research communities for data that are more accurate and have increased temporal and spatial resolution. Updating decades of acquired knowledge in the field, Solar and Infrared Radiation Measurements details the strengths and weaknesses of instruments used to conduct such solar and infrared radiation measurements.

Topics covered include:

• Radiometer design and performance
• Equipment calibration, installation, operation, and maintenance
• Data quality assessment
• Methods to use measured data to estimate irradiance for any surface

With a broad range of content that will benefit students and more experienced readers alike, this resource serves as a primer and technical reference that presents the basic terminology and fundamentals for resource assessment. It explores the history of solar radiation instruments and addresses direct normal, global, diffuse, and tilted measurements, as well as the characteristics of instruments used for these measurements. The authors consider methods of assessing the uncertainty of solar measurements and then cover albedo, infrared, net, and spectral irradiance measurements and instrumentation. The book devotes a section to other meteorological instruments, and another to the basics for installing and operating a solar monitoring station. Appendices include information on solar resource assessment modeling and satellite-derived irradiance, along with other useful material.