Solar Noon

Solar Noon Module

This module contains functions for estimating solar noon on each day in a PV power or irradiance data set. All functions assume that the data has been cleaned and put into a 2-D array or power matrix form (see: solardatatools.data_transforms)

For low-frequency data set (e.g. 15-minute), the energy center of mass approach tends to give a better estimate of solar noon than the sunrise/sunset approach.

solardatatools.solar_noon.avg_sunrise_sunset(data_in, threshold=0.01)

Calculate the sunrise time and sunset time for each day, and use the average of these two values as an estimate for solar noon.

Parameters:

data_in – PV power matrix as generated by make_2d from solardatatools.data_transforms

Returns:

A 1-D array, containing the solar noon estimate for each day in the data set

solardatatools.solar_noon.energy_com(data)

Calculate the energy center of mass for each day, and use this quantity as an estimate for solar noon.

Function infers time stamps from the length of the first axis of the 2-D data array.

Parameters:

data – PV power matrix as generated by make_2d from solardatatools.data_transforms

Returns:

A 1-D array, containing the solar noon estimate for each day in the data set