Www.satel.light.com: The European database of daylight and solar radiation data based on meteosat images
Résumé
Satellight was a 3 year-European research program (Jan. 1996-March 1999) with the objective of making available on Internet a database of solar radiation and daylight for Western and Central Europe. The data was obtained by processing the information provided by the Meteosat satellite every 30 minutes. We first developed and validated models to derive radiation and daylight data on ground from the satellite measurements. Then, we produced two years of data: 1996 and 1997, and made it accessible via a web server (its address is www.satel-light.com). The server provides statistics on the direct, diffuse and global illuminances or irradiances, on horizontal or tilted plane, for various zones in Europe or for specific locations. The information is presented as maps, figures or tables. In 2001, thanks to a new European project called SODA (see http://www-helioserve.cma.fr/soda/), three more years will be added to the database to make it more relevant of long term climatic trends