PH-79-08-3 -- Availability of Solar Radiation Data in the United States PDF

The demand for solar radiation data has risen exponentially in the past five years with the advent of the world energy awareness, precipitated by the drastic oil price increases since 1973. Solar radiation, with a power input of 170 million megawatts, logically came under active consideration as an alternate energy source. Questions about the nature and distribution of solar radiation began to be asked, and it was discovered that our knowledge and data base suffered very serious deficiencies.

Since 1973, the Department of Energy and its predecessors began a series of initiatives to correct these deficiences. The available solar radiation data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) network (including cooperators) contained some serious errors resulting from a host of calibration and instrumental problems. It became apparent that a new automated solar radiation network (with new instrumentation) would have to be installed and that the historical data would have to be rehabilitated and made available.