Active Solar Ground Stations across Australia

Solar ground stations around Australia are collecting valuable information and data about the solar resource in that area. The information on this page is to provide a link between a solar investigator and the organisations collecting solar radiation data through high quality ground stations in their area of interest. Geoscience Australia will further add to this linkage as we gain information and contacts with other potential sources for ground station information.

Active Solar Ground Stations
across Australia
© Geoscience Australia

Bureau of Meteorology Solar Ground Stations
Station Name Data Collection Period Data Collected

Adelaide

1994 to present

  • direct solar irradiance
  • diffuse solar irradiance
  • global solar irradiance
  • down-welling infrared irradiance
  • direct solar spectral transmission at 368, 412, 500, 610, 778, 812, 868 nm

Alice Springs

1993 to present

Broome

1996 to present

Cape Grim

1998 to present

Cobar

2012 to present

Darwin

1993 to present

Geraldton

2012 to present

Kalgoorlie

1993 to present

Learmonth

1996 to 2006

Longreach

2012 to present

Melbourne Airport

1999 to present

Mildura

1993 to present

Rockhampton

1996 to present

Townsville

2012 to present

Wagga Wagga

1997 to present

Woomera

2012 to present

Contact Details: Bureau of Meteorology
GPO Box 1289
Melbourne VIC 3001

Recently the Bureau of Meteorology has made available, with support from the Australian Solar Institute, 1 minute ground station data.

Typical Radiation Instrumentation
Suite at Bureau Network Site
© Bureau of Meteorology

Queensland Government Solar Ground Stations
Station Name Data Collection Period Data Collected

Charters Towers

2009 to present

  • global horizontal irradiation
  • global irradiation on a north facing plane inclined at latitude angle
  • global horizontal irradiation on a 2 axis tracking plane
  • direct beam irradiation
  • global solar exposure
  • direct solar exposure
  • diffuse solar exposure
  • global solar irradiance
  • sunshine duration
  • number of cloudy days and cloud types
  • climatic information

Cloncurry

2009 to present

Roma

2009 to present

Contact Details: Department of Energy and Water Supply
41 George Street, Brisbane QLD 4000
PO Box 15456, City East QLD 4002

Topic contact: energy@ga.gov.au Last updated: November 27, 2012