Improved field evaluation of reference cells using spectral measurements

•Evaluates the performance of a reference cell on a one-axis tracker.•Presented a model that uses spectral irradiance data to model the output of the reference cell.•A good match was found between the modeled reference cell output and the reference cell measurement.•A simplified comparison between reference cell measurements and spectral irradiance measurements is suggested.•Suggestions for more through testing of reference cell spectral response is presented.