National Solar Radiation Data Base
1991- 2010 Update
About the Update
  The updated 1991-2010 National Solar Radiation Database holds solar and meteorological data for 1,454 locations in the United States and its territories. The National Climatic Data Center provides primary distribution of the NSRDB.


IMPORTANT NOTICE:

Welcome to the updated 1991-2010 National Solar Radiation Database!

Distribution of the NSRDB is authorized through the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), which has experienced some ingest and cataloging delays for the updated NSRDB. To expedite release of this data set to users, NREL has received temporary authorization for distribution of all NSRDB products. In the near future, the content and organization of this web page will change as the gridded and meteorological data sets are posted at NCDC. When these changes take effect, this notice will be updated to clarify the best access for all data.

Please note that until the permanent distribution scheme is implemented, some sections of the NSRDB User’s Manual (linked below) will incorrectly refer to NCDC web sites for data access.


NSRDB Research Solar Fields Data (No Meteorological Data)
 
  • Hourly Solar Data and Statistical Summaries

    • Individual site-years by:

    • All available solar data and statistical files in compressed site files (gzip compression*) by:

      *Files created using UNIX tar and gzip compression. Utilities are commonly available on UNIX, Mac, and
      Windows platforms to decompress and extract these files.


  • NSRDB_StationsMeta.csv   (CSV, 112 KB)
    Metadata file containing site USAF number, class, station name, coordinates, etc.

Documentation
 

  Measured Data - About 40 stations in the updated NSRDB include measured solar data (1991-2005), supplied by these agencies:
  • Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program, DOE
  • Florida Solar Energy Center, State of Florida
  • Integrated Surface Irradiance Study (ISIS) and Surface Radiation Budget Measurement (SURFRAD) Networks, NOAA/ARL, NOAA/ESRL/Global Monitoring Division
  • Measurement and Instrumentation Data Center, NREL
  • University of Oregon Solar Radiation Monitoring Laboratory Network
  • University of Texas Solar Energy Laboratory.


Project Participants - Primary project funding came from NREL with support from the following collaborators:

  • The Atmospheric Sciences Research Center, State University of New York at Albany
  • Climate Systems Branch, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
  • Clean Power Research
  • National Climatic Data Center, U.S. Department of Commerce
  • Northeast Regional Climate Center, Cornell University
  • Solar Consulting Services, Colebrook, New Hampshire
  • Solar Radiation Monitoring Laboratory, University of Oregon.

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