Vaisala Energy Support
How accurate are the Solar Prospecting Tools?
As part of our processing, we have compared our dataset to the existing NREL solar dataset for the continental United States as well as several observational datasets from the Surface Radiation Network (SurfRad), the Baseline Surface Radiation Networks, the Indian Meteorological Department, and the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia. In all cases our data had a low RMSE (Root Mean Squared Error) and compared favorably with our competitors. The smaller RMSE implies that our dataset is more useful as a time-series of values. In other words, our estimates of irradiance are closer to actual observed values than our competitors’ estimates on an hour-by-hour basis.
Note that in some areas with highly reflective terrain, such as salt flats and some areas with permanent snow, the satellite algorithms have difficulty distinguishing clouds from the terrain. As a result, the cloudiness estimates in these areas are higher than they should be, thus the amount of global horizontal and direct normal irradiance is underestimated and the diffuse radiation in these areas is overestimated. Known areas affected by this problem include the Bonneville Salt Flats on the Nevada-Utah border and the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
More Solar Online Tools Questions
- How do I enter a location?
- What's the latest month available in the solar time series tool?
- What is the Data Shown in the Solar Time Series Viewer?
- What updates were applied to the datasets in November 2019?
- Which weather data source should I pick?
- What do the Annual Mean Irradiance Tools provide?
- How do I interpret the graphs provided by the Monthly Mean Irradiance Tools?
- What solar values are shown on the map?
- Why do we show a +/- next to the annual values?
- What is Global Horizontal Irradiance?
- How can I compare sites side-by-side?
- What is Direct Normal Irradiance?
- How do I change locations for individual tools?
- What is Diffuse Horizontal Irradiance?
- Why does the map disappear?
- What are the units of irradiance?
- What affects solar radiation at a given site?
- How much area is covered by the Solar Prospecting Tools?
- What data has been created?
- How was the data behind your map created?
- How do I convert the 3TIER values to peak sun hours?
- Why does the data not match my observations?
- What were 3TIER's solar data validation procedures?
If you didn't find what you were looking for, please contact 3TIER Support for additional assistance.