This service is provided by NYSERDA to New York residents and businesses that own or operate solar systems or are simply interested in solar energy resource information.
The site provides mapped solar resource for the State, updated on a monthly basis, and accessible historically through an archive reaching back to 1998. The solar data are produced at the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center (ASRC) by modeling the data from geostationary weather satellites. Information on the methodology is available by clicking here.
An important function of the SIRS is its link with the Clean Power Estimator service. Those who operate photovoltaic solar systems registered with NYSERDA can find out how much energy their system should have produced in any given month, up to the latest month, and therefore find out whether any output shortfall is caused by weather anomalies such as unusually cloudy weather. Users can access this service by clicking on the "Check Your System" link.