Finland-based Vaisala has launched a new, ready-to-install solar weather station that provides all of the instrumentation required by solar project developers, operators and their engineering teams for best practice resource assessment and monitoring. The SP-12 solar weather station, which has already been successfully deployed at multiple locations across the U.S. and Canada, completes Vaisala's platform of end-to-end solar project development, asset and portfolio management services.
"Vaisala offers a cost-competitive package for both the weather stations and tuning of satellite-derived irradiance data," said Jeffrey Webber, Development Engineer at Cypress Creek Renewables, a U.S. project developer and operator and an early adopter of the SP-12 Solar Weather Station who saw the value of working with a single provider for all solar resource assessment needs.
The SP-12 solar weather station, available in multiple configurations, measures the full range of environmental parameters that affect solar project performance. The station, mounted on a 2-meter tower and booms, combines industry-leading Kipp & Zonen pyranometers with Vaisala's next-generation WXT536 multi-weather sensor, capable of measuring wind speed and direction, ambient temperature, humidity, pressure and rainfall. An integrated thermistor assesses panel temperature for determining thermal losses.
These measurements are collected and relayed by Vaisala's Nomad 3 Data Logger, a rugged and reliable device that provides real-time remote access to site data by means of Vaisala's SkyServe web platform, FTP and SCADA integration. The weather station is easy to install and configure and has low power requirements, standing up to the demands of long-term development and operational measurement campaigns in harsh climates and remote regions. A full specification sheet for the SP-12 Solar Weather Station is available here.
