Irradiance measurements in or near Berkeley, California

[Anton Driesse]

I'm looking for at least a few years of measured beam and diffuse irradiance in or near Berkeley, California.

• the more years, the better; it doesn't matter which years
• distance from Berkeley is negotiable; main requirement is for "similar" weather
• sub-hourly data would be best, like one or five minutes

The purpose is to generate some statistics on the range of conditions that occur.

Does anyone have anything like that available, or can anyone point me to a source?

Many thanks in advance!

Anton

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[Anton Driesse]

Thanks, Ricardo. Those data are certainly useful, but not for my current need! 🙂

Anton

On 2026-07-08 21:29, 'R. de Souza' via pvlib-python wrote:

Hi, Anton

It probably won’t be useful, but there are 5-minute data available from the NLR (formerly NREL) for Golden, Colorado.

I recommend taking a look at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286746041_New_data_set_for_validating_PV_module_performance_models and at the NLR databases in general.

Best regards,

Ricardo

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[P. C.]

Hi Anton,

If modeled data are acceptable in addition to ground measurements, the NSRDB is probably worth considering.

It provides long-term time series of GHI, DNI and DHI for the Berkeley area and much of the United States. Depending on the dataset, temporal resolution ranges from 5–10 minutes to hourly, with coverage extending over multiple decades for some products.

Access is free, although you need to register for an NSRDB API key. 

You can obtain an API key here:
https://developer.nlr.gov/signup/

If your analysis specifically requires ground-based measurements rather than satellite-derived estimates, the NSRDB also lets you query for nearby station datasets where available, although the spatial and temporal coverage is naturally more limited than the satellite products.

Best regards. / Un saludo.

 

Pablo Climent Sánchez | Engineering / Modeling, Sizing & Performance

Energía Solar, 1, Campus Palmas Altas, Seville (Spain)

[Anton Driesse]

Hi Pablo,

I am specifically looking for measured data because the statistical distributions are very likely different with modelled data.

Thanks for replying though!

Anton

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