ABSTRACT
Acquisition of incident solar radiation data is becoming increasingly important for electric energy supply projects and other technical applications. For this reason a new solar radiation sensor (Solar-Igel) has been developed at the University of Paderborn. With the help of 135 sectional sensors positioned radially on a hemisphere, the twodimensional incident radiation distribution pattern is sampled twice each second. In the region around Paderborn a network of eight Solar-Igels has been set up over an area of 150 km2 in order to extend the description of the incident radiation distribution at the site of a Solar-Igel for making temporal and spatial forecasts for the entire network. This paper first of all describes the utilised measuring technology. An important goal of the project is to make the data collected in the network available to interested users. Therefore the infra-structure is introduced here too, with which the data and results will be published on the Internet.
