NREL is a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy

Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy

Operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC.

This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy

Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications.

Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308

Equipment Loan

Cooperative Research and Development 

Final Report

CRADA Number: CRD-07-250

NREL Technical Contact: Tom Stoffel

CRADA Report

NREL/TP-7A10-58527

August 2013
NOTICE

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Cover Photos: (left to right) photo by Pat Corkery, NREL 16416, photo from SunEdison, NREL 17423, photo by Pat Corkery, NREL 

16560, photo by Dennis Schroeder, NREL 17613, photo by Dean Armstrong, NREL 17436, photo by Pat Corkery, NREL 17721.

 Printed on paper containing at least 50% wastepaper, including 10% post consumer waste. 
1

This report is available at no cost from the 

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) 

at www.nrel.gov/publications.

Cooperative Research and Development Final Report

In accordance with Requirements set forth in Article XI.A(3) of the CRADA document, this document is 

the final CRADA report, including a list of Subject Inventions, to be forwarded to the Office of Science 

and Technical Information as part of the commitment to the public to demonstrate results of federally 

funded research.

CRADA Number: CRD-07-250

CRADA Title: Equipment Loan

Parties to the Agreement: Abengoa Solar

Joint Work Statement Funding Table showing DOE commitment: 

Estimated Costs NREL Shared Resources

Year 1 $5,437.00

Year 2 $ 00.00

Year 3 $ 00.00

TOTALS $5,437.00

Abstract of CRADA work: 

Site-specific, long-term, continuous, and high-resolution measurements of solar irradiance are important 

for developing renewable resource data. These data are used for several research and development 

activities consistent with the NREL mission:

• Establish a national 30-year climatological database of measured solar irradiances 

• Provide high quality ground-truth data for satellite remote sensing validation

• Support development of radiative transfer models for estimating solar irradiance from available 

meteorological observations

• Provide solar resource information needed for technology deployment and operations.

Summary of Research Results: 

Solar radiation resource measurements from a rotating shadowband radiometer system (RSR) have been 

collected by Abengoa Solar for the period January 2008 through January 2013. RSR measurements of 

global horizontal and diffuse horizontal irradiance components were used to compute the coincident 

direct normal irradiance at 1-minutue intervals. The direct normal irradiance is the essential solar resource 

for designing and testing a concentrating solar power conversion system. These data supported the 

combined needs of Abengoa Solar for site-specific, long-term, continuous measurements of solar 

irradiance for validating system performance and NREL’s needs for ground validation data for solar 

resource modeling.

Subject Inventions Listing: Not Applicable

Report Date: June 13, 2013 Responsible Technical Contact at Alliance/NREL: Tom Stoffel

This document contains NO confidential, protectable, or proprietary information.