Noria Data Management Software for PV Modules Characterization in the Outdoor ESTER Test Facility

The software named Noria, conceived and realized on purpose by the Environmental Technical Physics group of the University of Rome Tor Vergata, is presented. Noria has been built to manage the data coming from the outdoor ESTER test facility for PV modules of various technologies. In the facility, irradiance and meteorological parameters as well as maximum power of the PV modules under test are collected every minute while every ten minutes complete IV curves are traced and stored in the database. This large amount of data requires a powerful software tool structured with high flexibility architecture and user friendly interface in order to retrieve the information needed. The basic idea was to reproduce via software the PV modules arrangements on the outdoor stands during the monitoring activities. The information given by the stand configurations are used to retrieve the data. Logical queries allow to filter and extract data according to a wide variety of possibility selecting by radiation level, wind intensity, PV modules model, PV modules current or voltage, date and time etc.