After a thoroughly relaxing weekend, I am back to work at the solar center. We recently had our big lab day, which involved taking voltage/current curves for three different panels with instruments that look like this:

An IV curve tracer, connected to a laptop and sample PV panel.

I am also nearing the end of my first coding assignment, which simulates theoretical annual AC power yield for a variety of sun collector configurations, based on measured hourly meteorological data. We will then use it to run more recent 2010 data, and try to improve it with empirical corrections.

Gadgets are fun!

Meanwhile, there were plenty of ibex to welcome me back!

We get the next two days of work off for the shavuot holiday (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shavuot), so there is high potential for more traveling adventures. Stay tuned!