SoDa:: Services for Professionals in Solar Energy and Radiation

The Education Service is a joint service of the servers SoDa and HelioClim. It proposes several lectures and tools about solar radiation, the usual quantities, their units and how to convert them, the course of the Sun in the sky, the climatology of solar radiation in Europe and the influence of the seasons and orography. The Education Service is delivered by Centre Energétique et Procédés, Armines / Ecole des Mines de Paris, France.

Simulator of the position of the Sun in the sky. This Java applet draws the position of the Sun in the sky for each instant of a given day and a given latitude. Leave the mouse over the curve to obtain numerical values for elevation and azimuth. Time is the true solar time (zenith = 12 h).

Units used in solar radiation. This page describes the units of the International System and others. It offers means to convert from one unit to another.

Terminology defines the quantities used in solar radiation.

Lectures in climatology of the solar radiation in Europe. The solar radiation received at ground level is not uniform. It varies as a function of the season, the latitude and local effects, such as mountains or presence of the ocean. These pages describe these variations throughout the year and their causes for the geographical Europe and the Mediterranean basin. Several exercises are proposed to better understand the course of the sun in the sky during the year.