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This is a simple program that provides radiation levels on a solar flat plate collectors based on:
The collector location (latitude)
The collector orientation (azimuth angle and tilt angle)
It will provide hour by hour collected energy, or month by month collected energy for full sunshine conditions.
It is good for answering questions like:
How much less energy will a collector see if its pointed SE instead of S?
How much energy will I lose if the sun is blocked from 11am to noon?
The program gives energy collected for FULL SUN conditions -- it does not account for cloudy weather, and should not be used to estimate how much energy you will actually collect in your location.
See screen shot and sample output here.
This is a Microsoft Visual Basic.Net program. It requires that your computer be using the Microsoft Windows operating system, AND have the ".Net Framework". If the program fails to run on your computer, and your operating system is Windows, then you probably need to download the ".Net Framework" from: http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/downloads/framework1_1/.
Note: If you are outside the US, see the note at bottom of this page.
Download Instructions:
Click the link below to download. Choose the directory you want the program to be downloaded to. Once the download has completed, just double click the file RadOnCol.exe to run the program (there is no installation procedure).
Download RadOnCol.exe Program (100K)
Installing outside the US: Some in Europe have reported trouble installing Radiation On Collector. This appears to have something to do with the dot net framework, but its unclear exactly what the problem is. If you have had trouble, please let me know exactly what happened -- I'd like to get to the bottom of this. If any of you software gurus out there have some idea what the problem might be, please let me know.
Gary updated Nov 4, 2007