Brighton Webs is an independent research company located in the south east of England  interested in the economics, design and performance of renewable energy systems.  we are currently developing software to link weather data to the output of wind  and solar devices.

	Maths and Statistics support all forms of research. Examples include the use of Monte Carlo methods to simulate  a project, the input to which consists of several random variables. Those random variables might be modelled with  distributions, The Weibull and Rayleigh distributions are often used to model wind speed. The triangular distribution  is useful when only subjective assessments of a range of values is available. Descriptive statistics such as the mean,  mode and median provide a means of summarising large amounts of data.
	The output of wind and solar devices is a functon of location and weather. Wind speed  can be modelled using the Rayleigh and Weibull distributions. The two factors determining  of solar devices are Sun-Earth geometry and nature and extent of cloud cover.  A thin layer of cirrus passing over Arizona during the summer will cause less attenuation than a low, thick overcast winter sky over North West Europe.
	Building equipment and making observations a good way of learning about the environment.  Watching a cloud pass overhead and watching a meter showing the irradiance is instructive.  The current interest is a self-built device called Lug (which may or may not be a pagan Sun goddess).  This uses a small, flat photocell and five LED to indicate the change of spectrum under a cloud sky.  An earlier experiment was based on a small off-grid system consisting of a 5W solar panel and a small  lead acid battery. This demonstrated a clear relationship between cloud cover and performance and was  the starting point for a more systematic study of the relationship between cloud cover and the performance  of solar devices.
	It is important to understand the economics of any project before making a decision to proceed.  There are many dimensions to a project appraisal, including political risk, social benefits and various forms of risk, such will the construction be finished on time, will the actual performance of the equipment match the claims of the designers and what's the potential for cost overruns.  At the core of project appraisal is the concept of Net Present Value.  This technique takes all the future cash flows and reduces them to a single number reflecting what the project is worth in today's money.
	Whilst working with the maths and stats of renewable energy, I have formed two opions. The first is that conservation is at least as important as generation. The second is that establishing a separate renewable energy economy alongside the fossil/nuclear grid is an attractive option. These views are evolving in the Blog.
	The site has been growing steadily over past few years. As more material relating to renewable energy becomes available it is being added to the site. Wind is moving gas (11-Feb-12) The distribution of water vapour (02-Jan-12)