Summary

Description

The National Solar Radiation Data Base (NSRDB) is the most comprehensive collection of solar data freely available. The 1991 - 2005 NSRDB contains hourly solar radiation (including global, direct, and diffuse) and meteorological data for 1,454 stations. NCDC's Integrated Surface Data (ISD) were the key data source for this effort, with much of the solar data modeled/estimated based on the surface observations. This dataset builds on the 1961-1990 NSRDB, which contains data for 239 stations. These data are extremely useful in estimating solar energy potential across the U.S., and in estimating heating/cooling requirements for buildings based on heat-gain from solar radiation. More information available at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/reds/ Files available from either: OpenEI NSRDB FTP Site