NAPA, Calif. – Clean Power Research®, one of the California Solar Initiative (CSI) RD&D grant awardees, has released a free, high resolution solar resource data set covering the entire state of California as part of its CSI grant. SolarAnywhere® Enhanced Resolution (ER) enhances SolarAnywhere – a web-based solar irradiance data service – to provide industry leading spatial resolution of 1 km x 1 km and temporal resolution (frequency) of 30 minutes. The CSI RD&D sponsored data is available free of charge and covers the time period 2003 through 2011, available with a one year time lag.
SolarAnywhere ER will enable solar project installers and developers, utilities, consultants, researchers and independent system operators to more carefully plan new solar installations and their integration into the grid, especially given the intermittent nature of solar as an energy resource.
“It is because of the successful, broad adoption of PV in California that the California Solar Initiative (CSI) has embarked on an effort to support modeling and verification in high penetration environments,” said Molly Tirpak Sterkel, Program and Project Supervisor for the Distributed Generation and California Solar Initiative at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).
California leads the nation in solar photovoltaic (PV) adoption, and with PV increasingly energizing California, there is a greater focus on planning and operating PV systems in such a solar-rich environment.
Sterkel added, “SolarAnywhere ER provides resource data that will enable intelligent planning and operations for the continued growth of solar as part of California’s overall energy mix.”
As a result of the CSI program, interested users can get started today for free at: www.solaranywhere.com.
SolarAnywhere ER builds off the foundation of SolarAnywhere, launched by Clean Power Research in 2008. SolarAnywhere provides downloadable, satellite derived solar irradiance data for the continental United States and Hawaii, with historical, real time and forecast data available. Models and research innovations for SolarAnywhere are provided by the lab of Dr. Richard Perez at the University at Albany (SUNY) and are an evolution of Perez’s work as encompassed in the “SUNY gridded data” of the National Solar Resource Database (NSRDB).
About Clean Power Research
Clean Power Research provides software, consulting and research for making intelligent energy decisions. The company’s online software services include solar feasibility calculators, quoting tools, incentive management systems, utility bill calculation and system performance monitoring solutions. Utilities, agencies and manufacturers also license the company’s databases of electricity rates, incentives and solar irradiance data. Founded in 1998, the company has offices in Napa, CA and Kirkland, WA. For more information visit: www.cleanpower.com.
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