Case Studies - K&Z

Smart Solar / PV Monitoring with Smart Weather Sensors | OTT HydroMet

Blog Team — Fri, 15 May 2026 19:44:12 GMT

Encouraging Solar Energy in South Africa with SAURAN | OTT HydroMet

Blog Team — Fri, 15 May 2026 19:39:21 GMT

Network Consists of Twelve Radiometric Measurement Stations

The network consists of twelve radiometric measurement stations in Southern Africa and one on Reunion Island, all equipped with high resolution instrumentation to measure the solar irradiance as well as other meteorological parameters.

Chinese University of Hong Kong Studies Outdoor 3D Radiant Fluxes | OTT HydroMet

Blog Team — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 08:34:38 GMT

Measurement of Short and Long Wave Radiation Fluxes

Measurements of the short and long wave radiation fluxes from six directions: up, down, and the four cardinal points - can be combined to give the most accurate outdoor Tmrt with appropriate corrections for the view factor coefficients.

Hong Kong, One of the Highest Density Cities on Earth

By mounting three CNR 4 net radiometers on a tripod, a mobile meteorological station for 3-dimensional radiant fluxes is set up within the outdoor urban environment in Hong Kong, one of the highest density cities on Earth.

Each CNR 4 consists of four sensors, recording both short and long wave radiation from two sides.

Setup for the Three CNR 4 Net Radiometers:

One CNR 4 is mounted horizontally looking at the sky and ground
Another is mounted vertically looking East and West
The third looks North and South

The CNR 4 mobile station will be surrounded by different combinations of tall buildings of different orientations, shapes, surface materials, and so on. The outdoor thermal comfort in the urban setting is being studied in terms of radiant fluxes and hence Tmrt.

An outdoor thermal model of the Hong Kong urban environment will be developed based on the global Tmrt equation in order to seek improvements in urban planning in high density cities.

Article by Mr. Alan Lai of the School of Architecture, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Energy Balance Studies in India with LAS MkII | OTT HydroMet

Blog Team — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 17:25:17 GMT

Continuous Measurement of Sensible Heat Fluxes

A large aperture scintillometer (LAS), is an open-path optical device for monitoring fluctuations in refractive index of the turbulent atmosphere. The infrared light beam is transmitted to the receiver over path lengths up to 4.5 km (approximately 2.79 miles) that represent a relatively large area.

Understanding the Future for Glaciers in the Himalayas | OTT HydroMet

Blog Team — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 14:55:30 GMT

One of the most closely studied areas is the Langtang Valley, a catchment of nearly 600 km on the border with China and a quarter of which is covered by glaciers. The highest point is the Langtang Lirung, at 7,234 meters a peak, feared and revered by mountaineers because of the difficulty in reaching the summit.

Most of the rain falls in summer when the monsoon hits the Indian subcontinent and the Langtang region is on its northern frontier, before the Tibetan Plateau. During winter, in the areas above 4,000 meters, many meters of snow accumulate each year and most of it is melting at very fast rates.

Weather Stations Across the Nepalese Himalaya

Studies of precipitation and melt in the valleys of the Nepalese Himalaya are a collaboration of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), the Nepalese Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, Kathmandu University, and Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

This work has been continued for many years, currently funded by the Norwegian Government, European Research Commission and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. The team is international, comprising of Nepali, Dutch, Belgian, Finnish, Norwegian, German and Austrian co-workers studying the local climate, glaciers, snow cover and how it all relates to water resources.

The project team maintains a number of automatic weather stations (AWS) in the Langtang River catchment on the border with China that help us to judge the quality of larger data sets derived from satellites. The site is visited twice every year to maintain the stations and conduct field experiments. Data is used to make very detailed studies of melt and precipitation in the valley.

The highest automatic weather station is located at 5,200 meters above sea level on the Yala Glacier. Bi-annual glacier mass balance measurements there are among the most detailed in the Himalaya, making it one of the most important sites to help understand the future of glaciers in the region based on field measurements.

The automatic weather station measures air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, snow depth, as well as all four radiation components with a Kipp & Zonen CNR4 net radiometer.

This data helps in the understanding of the local meteorological drivers of glacier mass change. Yala Glacier overall is losing mass. This is due to intense solar radiation and dry and windy conditions that facilitate snow and ice melting and sublimation (the phase change from solid to gas without going through the liquid state).

Maintenance on Site, Twice a Year

Maintenance of the AWS at this high elevation can be tricky; temperatures in winter fall below -20°C and wind speeds can be very high. Our team visits the station twice a year, before and after the monsoon, to read out data and check equipment functionality.

On clear days, solar radiation at this altitude is fierce. The reflection from the white snow feels like a grill, even when air temperatures are just above the freezing point. When ablation of snow and ice is very strong in the summer, the metal poles of the weather station often need to be re-drilled into the ice by three to four meters. This is to prevent it from melting out and falling over, and potentially damaging sensors like the CNR4 in the process.

Getting data from these stations is not technically difficult, but the local conditions are a challenge. Oxygen levels are 50% lower than in the Netherlands, and that has an effect on one’s concentration. Combine this with freezing temperatures in the morning and the beating sun in the afternoon and you have quite difficult operating conditions.

How the CNR4 Comes Into Play

Future Work - Maintenance and Analysis

After installing new sensors for so many field seasons, the main focus now lies on maintaining these setups and analyzing the data. Future endeavours will hopefully lead to other areas to see whether insights gained here over the years are applicable elsewhere.

Collaborations with local and international partners are key to that, an effort that takes much time in meetings but makes work on these stations even more exciting.

Written by By Jakob F. Steiner, PhD candidate, Faculty of Geosciences , Utrecht University

Find out more about ICIMOD at www.icimod.org and the Utrecht University mountain hydrology projects at www.mountainhydrology.org

Smart Lufft-Sensor on Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) in Athens

Blog Team — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 13:16:57 GMT

Building Automation Data using Lufft Smart Weather Sensors

On the photovoltaic roof of the center, the sensor measuring temperature, relative humidity, air pressure, wind velocity and wind direction as well as precipitation, was placed (installed by TEABE EPE).

The station transfers the measurement data to the BMS (Building Management System) via Modbus to monitor and control various sub systems.

RWIS Lite – Slim Road Weather Information Systems

Blog Team — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 13:14:52 GMT

Filling the Gaps with Mobile Sensing and RWIS Lite Stations

Ideally, a dense network of road weather monitoring stations reliably provides accurate, hyper-local data. Wherever that is not feasible, be it due to local characteristics or tight budgets, mobile sensing and streamlined Road Weather Information Systems (RWIS) can fill the gaps and ensure availability of essential weather and road surface information.

Integrated RWIS for Effective Driver Messaging

Blog Team — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 13:12:59 GMT

Challenge

Leading PV in Datong, Shanxi with 14 Solar Monitoring Stations | OTT HydroMet

Blog Team — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 13:04:29 GMT

Lufft Ceilometers Used in Large Meteo Networks of DWD & KNMI | OTT HydroMet

Blog Team — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 14:20:39 GMT

Cloud Height Sensors Capable of Measuring Up to 15K in the Sky

The Lufft CHM 15k can detect different cloud layers which are even up to 15 kilometers high. Through the tenders, both weather services found the right sensors to renew or extend their existing measurement network.

Thereby KNMI replaced 39 devices over a time period of two years. The DWD installed more than 100 ceilometers over the upcoming years.