Roster of Members
Table of Contents
In mid 1975 SCE installed the first of its 21 solar monitoring stations at Barstow, California, in a program to establish an accurate solar data base. A proposal was submitted to WEST Associates to expand the solar monitoring effort outside of the SCE service territory. The project, as approved, created the WEST Solar Monitoring network which included stations in six western states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Wyoming). The first station outside of SCE's service territory was installed in mid-1976 at Tucson, Arizona.
Thirteen stations reported data in the first West Associates Network publication in 1976. All told, during the approximately four and one half years of networks operation 52 stations gather data on global horizontal insolation and ambient temperature. Twentysix of these also reported direct normal insolation measurements. The network of 52 stations is shown in the map of West Associates sites.
Station instrumentation, site and maintenance costs for each station were borne by the respective utilities.WEST Associates funded the project management portion of the program which provided (through SCE): calibration of instruments; translation and storage of data; data reduction (summaries and graphs); and production of annual reports. The utility operating the station provided: monitoring equipment; a site; station setup costs; maintenance; and data tape changeout.
Instrumentation
Return to RReDC Homepage ( http://www.nrel.gov/rredc )