Solar Radiation Monitoring Laboratory (SRML)#

The Solar Radiation Monitoring Laboratory (SRML) at the University of Oregon has been providing solar radiation data for the Northeastern United States since 1975. The SRML monitoring station network consists of both high-quality stations (Tier 1) that measure all three irradiance components at a 1-minute resolution, as well as stations with low-quality instruments (Tier 2) that only log measurements hourly. A full list of the 42 stations (including discontinued stations) can be found at the SRML website.

Only the high-quality SRML stations are included in the SolarStations’ station listing; however, all active stations are shown below.

Station full name	Abbreviation	State	Country	Latitude	Longitude	Elevation	Time period	Network	Owner	Comment	Data availability	Tier	Instrument	Components
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Data retrieval#

Data from the SRML stations are stored in monthly files for each station and can be freely downloaded from their website. The data can also be downloaded programmatically using the pvlib-python library, specifically the read_srml_month_from_solardat function. A list of the station acronyms can be found here.

Help support the SRML

If you find the data useful, please consider donating to support the SRML.

An example of how to use pvlib to download data from the Hermiston station for June 2020 is shown here:

import pvlib

df = pvlib.iotools.read_srml_month_from_solardat(
    station='HE',
    year=2020,
    month=6)

# print the first 12 rows of data
show(df.head(), scrollX=True, scrollCollapse=True, paging=False, maxColumns=100, dom="tpr")

	ghi_0	ghi_0_flag	dni_0	dni_0_flag	dhi_3	dhi_3_flag	ghi_2	ghi_2_flag	dni_2	dni_2_flag	dhi_2	dhi_2_flag	temp_air_0	temp_air_0_flag	ghi_1	ghi_1_flag	dhi_1	dhi_1_flag	temp_air_1	temp_air_1_flag	relative_humidity_1	relative_humidity_1_flag	9151	9151_flag	wind_dir_1	wind_dir_1_flag	wind_speed_1	wind_speed_1_flag	dhi_0	dhi_0_flag
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The data retrieved from the Hermiston station include measurements of the three irradiance components and additional weather parameters including temperature and humidity. A few of the parameters in the downloaded datasets are visualized below.

axes = df[['ghi_0','dni_0','dhi_3','temp_air_1','wind_speed_1']].plot(
    subplots=True, legend=False, rot=0, figsize=(8,8), sharex=True)

# Set y-labels and y-limits
axes[0].set_ylabel('GHI [W/m$^2$]'), axes[0].set_ylim(-10,1400)
axes[1].set_ylabel('DNI [W/m$^2$]'), axes[1].set_ylim(-10,1400)
axes[2].set_ylabel('DHI [W/m$^2$]'), axes[2].set_ylim(-10,1400)
axes[3].set_ylabel('Temperature [°]'), axes[3].set_ylim(0,40)
_ = axes[4].set_ylabel('Wind\nspeed [m/s]'), axes[4].set_ylim(0,15)

SolarStations

Solar Radiation Monitoring Laboratory (SRML)

Contents

Solar Radiation Monitoring Laboratory (SRML)#

Data retrieval#