Characterization of a CCD-camera-based system for measurement of the solar radial energy distribution

ABSTRACT Charge-coupled device (CCD)-camera-based measurement systems offer the possibility to gather information on the solar radial energy distribution (sunshape). Sunshape measurements are very useful in designing high concentration photovoltaic systems and heliostats as they collect light only within a narrow field of view, the dimension of which has to be defined in the context of several different system design parameters. However, in this regard the CCD camera response needs to be adequately characterized. In this paper, uncertainty components for optical and other CCD-specific sources have been evaluated using indoor test procedures. We have considered CCD linearity and background noise, blooming, lens aberration, exposure time linearity and quantization error. Uncertainty calculation showed that a 0.94% (k = 2) combined expanded uncertainty on the solar radial energy distribution can be assumed.