Here we present a different take on our usual PES Ask the Experts. Patricia Darez, a director at 350renewables, interviews Marc Korevaar, a physicist at Kipp & Zonnen, to find out what makes the new RaZON+ stand out from its competitors.
Patricia Darez: Congratulations on the new product, I haven’t had a chance yet to test it out in the field but I already like the name, in Spanish it translates as Reason. Could you introduce the RaZON+ and tell us a bit about how it works?
Marc Korevaar: The RaZON+ is an all-in-one Solar Monitoring Station that was developed and engineered by a dedicated team at Kipp & Zonen. Apart from the Spanish meaning we also chose the name because ZON means sun in the Dutch language.
The system provides the three solar radiation components: direct, diffuse and global. Direct and diffuse are measured and the global is calculated using the time and location from the GPS.
The way the system is designed it is more resistant to soiling than traditional systems; mainly because of the way the PH1 pyrheliometer is designed. Using the Smart PH1 and PR1 fast response pyrheliometer and pyranometer the system can rapidly follow changing levels of irradiance.
However, there is also the option to go for higher performance instruments using the SHP1 first class pyrheliometer and a SMP10 secondary standard pyranometer, using an adapter kit.
The on-board microcontroller performs the calculations and logs the data. It also allows communication through four-wire RS-485, Ethernet or the optional Wi-Fi.
