Energy Matters Forums

[Gordon-Loomberah]

Seawatch, the reason for that is in my table above... panels produce more power when they are cooler. Compare 4thFeb with 14thMay.

[DoctorI]

Hi Guys
I decided it was about time I declared my hand as it were.
I have worked for BoM for the last 10.5 years in the observations side of things so I know nothing about forcasting.
With respect to measuring sunshine, the old method which is still used at all 60 BoM staffed stations is the Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder which only measures the number of hours of bright sunshine per day (to the nearest tenth). This is a manual reading and subject to a number of approximation and rounding errors. But it is still a reasonable measure of how much sunshine can fall on your panels each day (assuming you have tracking panels).
The modern solar radiation monitoring setup uses two pyranometers measuring direct and indirect visible light and indirect IR light via a pirheliometer (sp?). (there are other sensors that split the spectrum further but these are the main ones). There are about ten of these around the country. These are used to 'calibrate' the radiation data derived from satelite images.
If you call your nearest BoM office you may or may not get someone who knows much about these systems. The people that run these systems reside in Head Office in Melbourne in the Observations and Engineering section of BoM, specifically they are in the Regional Instrumentation Centre. However, even these scientists may not know about forecasting radiation exposure.

I hope this adds to your understanding of the data available on the BoM web pages.

Doctor I