Solar Radiation On Collector Program

 

Note: Radiation On Collector has a bug that is resulting in incorrect output for some dates.  I'm removing the download link until I get a chance to fix it.   Sorry about the inconvenience.

Gary

 

 

This is a simple program that provides radiation levels on a solar 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:

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 ...

 

And, the user manual:

Download the manual here ...

 

Here is a good  example from Scott showing how to use the program to optimize collector orientation for a particular residence -- CollectorOrientation.pdf

 

This is a Microsoft Visual Basic.Net program.  It requires that your computer be using the Microsoft Windows operating system, AND have the "dot Net Framework".  Its quite likely that your computer already has the dot Net Framework, but if not, its available from Microsoft for free here ...

 

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)  <-- deactivated until I get a chance to fix the error in it.

 

NEW -- Download manual for Radiation on Collector ...  (270K pdf)

 

 

Gary updated Nov 4, 2007, January 8, 2009