The team has utilized a number of different resources in order to project the heat that the system will be able to provide. The team started analyzing Solar Irradiance data from the Solar Redbook. This resource is an average of collected irradiance data over a 40 year period in Flagstaff. The data provided by Solar Redbook is the amount of irradiance at the top of the atmosphere, and thus is not the data we will use to project the heat the design could supply. The Solar Redbook did give valuable information on how angle of the panel affects the amount of radiation incident on that panel.
The team then moved to the System Advisory model, which converts NREL’s collected irradiance data to project how much useable heat a solar system can provide based on factors like geographical location and estimated heat loss. The team has designed a test to verify the data produced by the System Advisory Model.
Current Setup and Design Overview