Patent ID: 7832267
Filing Date: 2010-11-16
Classification: F24S,G06F,Y02B

Abstract:
1. A method for generating temporal solar irradiance values comprising: generating binary format hillshade files, for selected azimuth and altitude points on the Sun's path for selected times, wherein each of the hillshade files comprises a matrix of data cells representing shaded relief patterns for a selected area; reclassifying data in the hillshade files into reclassified files, on basis of the selected time points relative to the solar radiation data, wherein each of the hillshade files includes data for one of a selected number of different time points for a selected number of intermediate time intervals in a selected upper time interval; summing the reclassified files to generate a set of normalized reclassified files; summing the values for each corresponding one of the cells in the set of normalized reclassified files to generate an irradiance-weighted shade file; summing the hillshade files, by inclusively OR-ing corresponding values for each of the cells in each of the hillshade files to generate respective composite files for each of the selected intermediate time intervals; summing the composite files to generate a summed shade/time frequency file in which each data point therein represents the frequency of repetition of corresponding cells in the hillshade files over the selected upper time interval; and dividing each data point value in the irradiance-weighted shade file by the corresponding data point value in the frequency file to generate a file comprising solar access values for the upper time interval, relative to the intermediate time interval, for the selected area.