The measurement of solar radiation to characterize the solar climate for renewable energy and other applications is a time-consuming and expensive operation. Full climate characterization may require several decades of measurements. The data sets here demonstrate that the consistency of the solar resource in both time and space varies widely across the United States. The mapped results here illustrate regions with high and low variability and provide quick visual information to help decide where and how long measurements should be taken for a particular application. The underlying data that form these maps are also available here for site-specific analyses.

Please send questions and comments to Stephen Wilcox

Disclaimer and copyright notice.

Return to RREDC Home Page ( http://rredc.nrel.gov/ )