About SRML

The University of Oregon Solar Radiation Monitoring Lab (UO SRML) is a regional solar radiation data center. The goal of the lab is to provide high quality solar resource data for planning, design, deployment, and operation of solar electric facilities in the Pacific Northwest. Creating the long-term solar radiation data set requires persistence, maintenance of high standards, and an effort to educate people on the importance of a solar radiation.

The monitoring network

The UO SRML began operation in 1975 with a simple need to understand the solar resource in the area. Since that time, it has developed into one of the premier monitoring networks in the country. A complete history of the SRML is found here.

The SRML currently consists of four primary stations and roughly 10 secondary stations. The primary stations all have sun trackers and make direct normal and global horizontal measurments. These stations supply the highest quality data needed for large-scale system designs and for improved ground truthing of satellite solar radiation data. The secondary stations provide solar resource information from a wider variety of locations for similar purposes. The secondary stations operate instruments with slightly larger uncertainties at a fraction of the cost. The monitoring stations map has links to pages that discuss various aspects of our solar radiation data measuring and processing.

In addition to the stations that are currently in opperation, the SRML has data for approximately 20 previous stations that were in operation at some point in the past. These previous stations offer historical data on locations that more broadly cover the region.

Lab personnel

Our staff consists of:

Frank Vignola: Director, scientific studies, and educational outreach

Richard Kessler: Technician, station maintenance, calibration and data analysis

Josh Peterson: Associate Researcher, scientific studies and calibration

Student Workers: During the school year the lab hosts 3 - 4 undergraduate student workers.

Web site

One of the main goals of the lab is to disseminate regional solar irradiance data to the public. Our Web site is crucial to this mission; allowing us to provide data to the public, tools to facilitate its use, along with educational material to aid understanding of how it is properly used.
Find out more about our Web site design goals and strategies.

The UO SRML educational mission

In 2000, a contract with BPA facilitated our educational outreach programs designed to teach people how to use solar resource data. This funding has enabled the enhancement of our Web site and will allow us to undertake solar resource assessment workshops in future years. To see what types of education-related resources we currently have available, visit our educational materials webpage.

Help support the SRML

The SRML is entirely grant funded. Our team of dedicated staff works hard to ensure that the data is at the highest level of quality.
If your group is a long time user of the solar resource data provided by this website, consider becoming a sponsor. Without sponsors like you, none of this would be posible.

For single use users that found our data or website useful, please consider donating to the SRML.
95% of donations go directly station maintennce and personnel costs. Every donation helps!