NREL Solar Radiation Research Laboratory (SRRL): Baseline Measurement System (BMS), Golden, Colorado

The Solar Radiation Research Laboratory (SRRL) was established at the Solar Energy Research Institute (now NREL) in 1981 to provide continuous measurements of the solar resources, outdoor calibrations of pyranometers and pyrheliometers, and to characterize commercially available instrumentation. The SRRL is an outdoor laboratory located on South Table Mountain, a mesa providing excellent solar access throughout the year, overlooking Denver. 

Beginning with the basic measurements of global horizontal irradiance, direct normal irradiance and diffuse horizontal irradiance at 5-minute intervals, the SRRL Baseline Measurement System now produces more than 130 data elements at 1-min intervals that are available from the Measurement & Instrumentation Data Center Web site. 

Data sources include global horizontal, direct normal, diffuse horizontal (from shadowband and tracking disk), global on tilted surfaces, reflected solar irradiance, ultraviolet, infrared (upwelling and downwelling), photometric and spectral radiometers, sky imagery, and surface meteorological conditions (temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure, precipitation, snow cover, wind speed and direction at multiple levels). 

Data quality control and assessment include daily instrument maintenance (M-F) with automated data quality control based on real-time examinations of redundant instrumentation and internal consistency checks using NREL's SERI-QC methodology. Operators are notified of equipment problems by automatic e-mail messages generated by the data acquisition and processing system. Radiometers are recalibrated at least annually with reference instruments traceable to the World Radiometric Reference (WRR).

2 Data Resources
Name Size Type Resource Description History
NREL Solar Radiation Research Laboratory Baseline Measurement System 0 KB Website
Bibliography 0 KB Website Resource bibliography on SciTech Connect DOI 10.7799/1052221
Author Information
T. Stoffel, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
A. Andreas, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Cite This Dataset
Stoffel, T., and A. Andreas. 2015. "NREL Solar Radiation Research Laboratory (SRRL): Baseline Measurement System (BMS), Golden, Colorado." NREL Data Catalog. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Last updated: January 13, 2025. DOI: 10.7799/1052221.
About This Dataset
7
10.7799/1052221
Public
01/13/2025
DOE Project
NREL Solar Radiation Research Laboratory Baseline Measurement System
Funding Organization
Department of Energy (DOE)
Sponsoring Organization
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office
Research Areas
Energy Analysis
Geothermal Energy
Wind Energy
License
View License
Digital Object Identifier
10.7799/1052221