SPN1 Sunshine Pyranometer:
The Sunshine Pyranometer is a patented, meteorological-class instrument with built-in heating, designed for long-term outdoor exposure. It is an affordable alternative to shade-ring pyranometers, pyrheliometers, and traditional sunshine recorders. The SPN1 is exceptionally easy to use; it needs no routine adjustment or polar alignment and works at any latitude.
Unique Design
The Sunshine Pyranometer uses an array of seven miniature thermopile sensors and a computer-generated shading pattern to measure the direct and diffuse components of incident solar radiation. The shading pattern and thermopiles are arranged so that at least one thermopile is always fully exposed to the solar beam and at least one is fully shaded from it, regardless of the position of the sun in the sky. All seven thermopiles receive an equal amount of diffuse light. From the individual thermopile readings, a microprocessor calculates the global and diffuse horizontal irradiance, and from these values, an estimate of the sunshine state is made. The Sunshine Pyranometer is protected by patents EP 1012633 and US 6417500.
SPN1 Design Principles
The principles used in the Sunshine Pyranometer have been tried and tested in the Delta-T BF3 Sunshine Sensor. The original design has been enhanced by using miniature thermopile sensors, a high-quality ground glass dome, and an aluminum housing. The electronics have also been redesigned for higher accuracy and lower power consumption. Then SPN1 computes direct radiation by subtracting the diffuse from the global (total) radiation.
Outputs
The Sunshine Pyranometer provides two analog voltage outputs for global and diffuse radiation and a digital output for the sunshine duration, which can be connected to data loggers. Readings can be obtained directly from the RS232 port.
Heating
An internal heater keeps the dome clear of dew, ice, and snow down to -20 °C (in still air conditions), ensuring reliable readings in difficult climatic conditions.
Appliocation and features of SPN1 Sunshine Pyranometer:
Application |
Features |
|---|---|
| ✅ PV monitoring ✅ Solar energy ✅ Meteorology ✅ Agronomy & plant science ✅ Architecture and building design |
✅ Precision ground glass dome ✅ Wideband thermopile sensors ✅ Near ideal spectral and cosine response ✅ Standard output sensitivity ✅ Global (Total) and Diffuse irradiance in W.m-2 ✅ WMO sunshine threshold: 120 W.m-2 direct beam ✅ No routine adjustment or polar alignment ✅ No moving parts, shade rings or motorised tracking ✅ Works at any latitude |
