PROJECT: Honors Energy

NRS solar developers Roger “Hal” Halbakken and Brad Wilson visited NRS project development sites in Colorado in early February, including a stop at the site of our “Honors Energy” utility-scale solar project.

While onsite, Hal and Brad checked in on the NRG Systems solar met station that was installed in 2021 and has been operating for several months. Similar to a wind met tower in some ways (but much shorter), the solar met station collects onsite meteorological data important for accurately modeling the solar energy that can be generated at the site. This station collects data points including irradiance, albedo, soiling, temperature, humidity, precipitation, and wind speed/direction. This data is transmitted to our home office in Minnetonka, MN via cellular modem on a regular schedule. Unlike wind met towers, however, onsite solar met stations are not typically installed by default at utility-scale solar development sites, although it is starting to become more common.

The NRS development team knows that having more and better data can only improve the quality of its projects, so the team is pleased to be on the cutting edge of onsite solar data collection. Installation of these systems is planned for multiple other NRS utility-scale solar development sites in 2022.