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In the field of solar energy, LEPTEN/Labsolar has been focused on two subareas. Firstly, to implement reliable and continuous irradiation data from 6 stations, 5 located in the Santa Catarina State, and 1 in the Amazonas State. Secondly, to develop in cooperation with the National Institute of Space Research (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais - INPE) computer models to determine the intensity of solar irradiation on the planet surface based on satellite images. One of the outstanding results is the publishing of the first "Brazilian Solar Irradiation Atlas", in both printed and CD-ROM versions, supported by INMET.

In addition, the laboratory performs research on air conditioning systems aided by solar energy. Another research area is the performance analysis of autonomous photovoltaic installations, either in remote locations or interconnected to the electric power network.

The laboratory manages two surface stations within the context of the BSRN Project (Baseline Surface Radiation Network) / WMO (World Meteorological Organization), located in the LABSOLAR area in Florianopolis/Santa Catarina and in the Balbina/Amazonas Hydroelectric Plant.

Both stations are part of an international network of weather monitoring stations, which acquire data for the development of an atmospheric behavior physical model. Collected and qualified data is stored at WMRC (World Monitoring Radiation Center), in Zürich/Switzerland. The network is an international reference of data collection for scientific studies on climate changes.

In addition to the UFSC laboratory facilities, LEPTEN/Labsolar also has a physical testing facility in the ELETROSUL Sub-station of Campos Novos/Santa Catarina.


Infrastructure:

- Photovoltaic central, interconnected to the power distribution network;
- Water heating solar collector test set-up;
- Solar water heating central;
- Cryostats (controlled temperature thermal baths);
- Point-welding device;
- Leak detector;
- Diffusion vacuum pump;
- Turbo-molecular vacuum pump;
- Cooling tower;
- Compressed air internal circuit;
- AC and DC power sources;
- Ultrasound bath for equipment cleaning
- Thermocouple calibration system;
- Thermocouple bench;
- Data acquisition systems;
- Pyrheliometer;
- Multimeters;
- 40 personal computer network with Internet connection;
- Laser and inkjet printers;
- Network server;
- 12GHz thermal simulation cluster (using CFX software);
- 35,6GHz cluster (15GB memory) for climate simulation (using ARPS software).