MESoR

HelioClim-3 is a service providing irradiance data from 15 minutes to month, for Europe and Africa. Irradiance values from the database HelioClim-3, are computed from images of the Meteosat satellites since February 2004. Provider: MINES ParisTech / Armines (France).

• Irradiance data: global, direct and diffuse components on horizontal and tilted surfaces, including sun-tracking surfaces
• Temporal coverage: since February 2004
• Temporal resolution: from 15 min to 1 month, original data are for every 15 min
• Spatial resolution: 3 km at sub-satellite
• Spatial coverage: Europe, Africa, Atlantic Ocean

This free sample is limited to the year 2005. For data from other periods please see contact details on the IPR and Credits tab.

More information on this database at HelioClim web server (http://www.helioclim.org/heliosat/helioclim.html).

HelioClim-3 service is provided by the Center for Energy and Processes of Mines ParisTech / Armines.

Intellectual rights should be acknowledged by the mention "copyright 2006 Mines ParisTech / Armines".

To access not-for-free data, please, visit the SoDa Service (http://www.soda-is.com/eng/list_products_soda.html).

Geographical coordinates (latitude, longitude) should be entered

• by clicking on the map
• or entering the name of a city
• or typing in the coordinates either in decimal degrees (e.g., 10.875) or sexagesimal degrees (e.g., 10° 52' 12"). Under ISO standard, a positive latitude means North, a positive longitude means East.

Two dates should be entered to define a period: the beginning date and the end date. Format is YYYY-MM-DD (e.g., 2005-08-30).

Other inputs are

• the integration time, i.e. the duration of observation. It may range from 15 min to 1 month
• altitude above sea level in meter. If omitted, the mean altitude of the Meteosat pixel is taken
• ground albedo (optional if horizontal surface).

If the surface is mobile and always tracking the sun and being normal to the sun's rays, select "Computation mode: DNI". Then, you are set. Select the output mode and click on "compute web service".

Otherwise, select "tilted plane". In case of horizontal surface, both tilt and azimut angles are set to 0.
In case of fixed tilted surfaces:

• tilt: enter the angle of the slope, in degrees, from 0 (horizontal) to 90 (vertical)
• azimuth: enter the azimuth angle, in degrees. Convention is: clockwise, 0 towards North, 90 towards East, 180 towards South, 270 towards West

For sun-tracking surfaces or mobile surfaces:

• for two-axes tracker, with a surface always normal to sun rays, set tilt to -999 and azimut to -999 (same as the option "DNI")
• for a N-S axis tracker, set tilt to -999 and azimut to 180
• for a E-W axis tracker, set tilt to -999 and azimut to 90 * for a single horizontal axis tracker, set tilt to -999 and azimut to the azimut of the axis
• for a vertical axis tracker, i.e. with a surface keeping a constant tilt, set the tilt to its value and azimut to -999

The results are presented in a tabular format.
Each line corresponds to an instant of observation, depending on the request, i.e., from 15 min to 1 month.
Radiation values are irradiation over the integration period, in Wh/m2, the sum of radiation over the period.

• First column is the date in ISO standard YYYY-MM-DD
• Second column is the hour in ISO format: hh:mm (UT time) This instant represents the end of the observation period, i.e., 12:00 means that the value is the mean from the hour 11:00 to 12:00. Time system is UT. If the requested period of integration is larger than 1 h, then the time is not displayed
• Third column is the global component of the radiation
• Fourth column is the direct component of the radiation(noted beam)
• Fifth column is diffuse component of the radiation
• Sixth column is reflected component of the radiation