Assessment of spatial and temporal variability in the US solar resource from radiometric measurements and predictions from models using ground-based or satellite data

The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is responding to a growing demand for high-accuracy solar resource data with uncertainties significantly lower than those of existing solar resource datasets, such as the National Solar Radiation Database (NSRDB). Measurements for long-term solar resource characterizations require years to complete, which is an unacceptable timeline for the rapidly emerging needs of renewable energy...