Reginal Test Centers (RTC) - USA

[AdamRJensen]

The Regional Test Centers consists of five sites for testing PV outdoors for different climates.

• [ ] Albuquerque, NM

  The NM RTC is co-located with Sandia’s Photovoltaic Systems Evaluation Laboratory, which is a multiple-user facility that conducts research on emerging PV technologies and supports the detailed characterization and performance analysis of modules and components.

• [ ] Golden, CO

  The CO RTC is co-located with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’ Outdoor Test Facility.

• [ ] Calumet, MI

  The Michigan Regional Test Center (MI RTC) is located in Calumet, Michigan adjacent to the Advanced Power Systems Center at Michigan Technological University.

• [ ] Cocoa, FL

  The FL RTC is located on a 10-acre site owned by the Florida Solar Energy Center in Cocoa, FL, where the climate is consistently hot and humid. latitude=28.40509, longitude=-80.77090

• [ ] Henderson, NV

  Located less than 20 miles south of Las Vegas, this site is defined by high irradiance, high heat and limited precipitation. Site Partners: the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA).

[AdamRJensen]

Photo of the RTC in Cocoa

[kandersolar]

@AdamRJensen my understanding is that the RTC irradiance datasets are not public, nor are there any plans to make them public. A few datasets seem to have "leaked out" through collaborators, but to my knowledge none of them include the base irradiance components.

I see "not available" is an option for data availability. Does that mean we should still add the RTC stations to the list?

[AdamRJensen]

@kandersolar Interesting! My impression was that if you contacted them, they would be willing to share data (I forget who I talked to, think it was a woman at Sandia).

But yes everything gets added! 😄 For now you can just put "Not available"