pvlib.iotools.read_bsrn¶

pvlib.iotools.read_bsrn(filename, logical_records='0100')[source]¶

Read a BSRN station-to-archive file into a DataFrame.

The BSRN (Baseline Surface Radiation Network) is a world wide network of high-quality solar radiation monitoring stations as described in 1. The function is able to parse logical records (LR) 0100, 0300, and 0500. LR0100 contains the basic measurements, which include global, diffuse, and direct irradiance, as well as downwelling long-wave radiation 2. Future updates may include parsing of additional data and metadata.

BSRN files are freely available and can be accessed via FTP 3. The username and password for the BSRN FTP server can be obtained for free as described in the BSRN’s Data Release Guidelines 3.

Parameters

filename (str or path-like) – Name or path of a BSRN station-to-archive data file
logical_records (list or tuple, default: ('0100',)) – List of the logical records (LR) to parse. Options include: ‘0100’, ‘0300’, and ‘0500’.

Returns

data (DataFrame) – A DataFrame with the columns as described below. For a more extensive description of the variables, consult 2. An empty DataFrame is returned if the specified logical records were not found.
metadata (dict) – Dictionary containing metadata (primarily from LR0004).

Notes

The data DataFrame for LR0100 includes the following fields:

Key	Format	Description
Logical record 0100
ghi†	float	Mean global horizontal irradiance [W/m^2]
dni†	float	Mean direct normal irradiance [W/m^2]
dhi†	float	Mean diffuse horizontal irradiance [W/m^2]
lwd†	float	Mean. downward long-wave radiation [W/m^2]
temp_air	float	Air temperature [°C]
relative_humidity	float	Relative humidity [%]
pressure	float	Atmospheric pressure [hPa]
Logical record 0300
gri†	float	Mean ground-reflected irradiance [W/m^2]
lwu†	float	Mean long-wave upwelling irradiance [W/m^2]
net_radiation†	float	Mean net radiation (net radiometer) [W/m^2]
Logical record 0500
uva_global†	float	Mean UV-A global irradiance [W/m^2]
uvb_direct†	float	Mean UV-B direct irradiance [W/m^2]
uvb_global†	float	Mean UV-B global irradiance [W/m^2]
uvb_diffuse†	float	Mean UV-B diffuse irradiance [W/m^2]
uvb_reflected†	float	Mean UV-B reflected irradiance [W/m^2]

† Marked variables have corresponding columns for the standard deviation (_std), minimum (_min), and maximum (_max) calculated from the 60 samples that are average into each 1-minute measurement.

Hint

According to 2 “All time labels in the station-to-archive files denote the start of a time interval.” This corresponds to left bin edge labeling.