I just did Irradiance Chart of my south-east facing Estate

Charting Positional Irradiance with PVBuddy

As an avid solar enthusiast, I was eager to explore the capabilities of PVBuddy's irradiance sensor. One aspect that piqued my interest was its ability to chart irradiance levels at different positions around my building. Here's how I went about the process:

First, I charged the power bank and connect it to power PVBuddy sensor via the provided USB-C cable. The compact size of the sensor made it easy to carry around and position as needed. As for powerbanks, generally I like rectangular shaped ones for easy stick on either via blue tack or velcro to back of sensor. This makes the sensor very portable and easy to rest say on racks of solar panels.

Next I connect via WiFi either by my office network or independently anywhere via the sensor hotspot mode to PVBuddy app on my phone.  I started by placing the sensor on the east-facing side of my building, ensuring it had an unobstructed view of the rising sun. As the sun rose, I initiated the irradiance logging process. The app displayed real-time irradiance readings, allowing me to monitor the increasing levels as the sun's rays hit the sensor.

After capturing the morning irradiance data, I moved the sensor to the south-facing side of the building. This orientation typically receives the highest irradiance levels throughout the day, so I wanted to capture that data for comparison. Again, I logged the irradiance readings using the app, ensuring I had a comprehensive dataset for the south-facing side. 

As the day progressed, I repeated the process for the west-facing side, capturing the irradiance levels as the sun began to set. The portability of the PVBuddy sensor made it easy to reposition and log data from different angles[3].

Once I had collected irradiance data from all three sides of the building, I connected my phone to my laptop and downloaded the raw data files. Using a spreadsheet application, I was able to import the data and create charts to visualize the irradiance patterns throughout the day.

Data acquisition

First I downloaded the raw data from my mobile phone. Here's how it looks like:

The resulting charts clearly showed the varying irradiance levels at different positions around the building. The south-facing side with little shading from trees or nearby structures exhibited the highest irradiance levels during the peak hours of the day, while the east and west-facing sides exhibited lower levels during the morning and evening, respectively.

Here is one of the charts taken in the morning:

By charting the positional irradiance data, I gained valuable insights into the optimal placement of solar panels on my building right down to per second resolution. This information will be invaluable when planning future solar installations or adjustments to existing setups.

Overall, the PVBuddy irradiance sensor proved to be a powerful tool for analyzing and visualizing irradiance patterns. Its user-friendly interface, portability, and seamless integration with mobile devices made the data collection and charting process a breeze.

------

Author: Ken