An Improved Multipyranometer Array for the Measurement of Direct and Diffuse Solar Radiation

This paper describes an improved multipyranometer array (MPA) for the continuous remote measurement of direct and diffuse solar radiation. The MPA described in this paper is an improvement over previously published MPA studies due to the incorporation of an artificial horizon that prevents reflected ground radiation from striking the tilted sensors. In this paper a description of the NIST-traceable calibration facility is provided and preliminary results are presented that compare the MPA predicted beam to beam measurements from a precision normal incidence pyrheliometer and diffuse measurements from a precision shadow-band pyranometer respectively