Introduction
Weather, specifically irradiance plays a huge role in the output of a solar site, whether it's early in the morning, cloud cover or low season (winter), it's important to understand how it impacts your results.
To learn more about how the weather impacts your results and what information we use in the platform, check out this support article.
Measuring irradiance data
The positioning of the irradiance meter relative to the solar panels is crucial in ensuring that you will collect measurements correctly.
To accurately measure the Global Tilted Irradiance (GTI), the sensor must be placed on the same plane as the panels during the inspection. If the sensor is not positioned correctly, the irradiance data you will collect will not be correct.
In the example below, you will see that the meter is placed on the structure of the panels to ensure it is on the same plane as the solar panels. This means that even if you are working on single-axis trackers, the irradiance meter will follow the inclination of the panels, ensuring your measurements' accuracy. Additionally, you avoid putting the sensor directly on the panels and creating artificial shading.
The minimum required frequency for recording measurements is 15 minutes
Correctly positioned irradiance meter:
Incorrectly positioned irradiance meter:
Uploading your weather data
Once you are back from the field, you must upload the weather data captured to the Sitemark Fuse platform. This can be done by navigating to the operation and clicking the Weather button upper middle section of your screen shown below.
If you have already completed the operation, you can find this page by clicking Weather on the capture view.
After this, you will need to make the appropriate choice on where to upload the data. You can either upload it as a handheld device or as pyranometer data, by selecting from the drop down menu. Once you have chosen, you can use Import the data to choose the file you wish to import.
Once you have chosen the data you would like to import, you will need to assign the correct headers for each data column and prepare the data.
Here's how to prepare the data:
Unselect the first row of data that contains the titles in the file; this can be done with the checkbox highlighted in red.
Assign the correct titles to your data: Highlighted in orange is an example of how to do this correctly, ensuring that you give the Global Tilted Irradiance (GTI) the title of Irradiance.
Select the correct delimiter of the data highlighted in blue.
Finally, once you have checked the steps above are correct, you can finalize and import the data by using the Import Weather Data button highlighted in green.
Tips & Tricks
Date & Time vs. Timestamp: A timestamp contains all date and time information in one cell ie. 10:05:00 17:01:2022. Make sure you select timestamp only when this is the case; if the date and time are in 2 separate cells, they should be labeled Date & Time, respectively, as shown in the example above. The best format to submit a Date is to have it in the following format: DD.MM.YY. This means that to submit the first of April 2022; it should be formatted like 01.04.22.
The irradiance data that you are labelling is the GTI (Global Tilted Irradiance)
For the upload to succeed, there must be at least Date & Time (or Timestamp) and Irradiance data.
Here is a link to the sensor that we recommend.