Solargis offers several learning tools aimed at students and new practitioners in the PV industry. These tools have been developed or enhanced through the SERENDI-PV project, and are presented below.
Solargis Prospect
Solargis Prospect© is an online application supporting site selection and prefeasibility of PV projects. It allows the user to identify and compare potential sites for PV project development and consult on factors impacting the suitability and performance of potential PV power plants. The factors include solar resource, climate parameters, such as temperature, humidity, and wind speed, geographical features, such as elevation and terrain slope, and, after the update with the outputs of the SERENDI-PV project, also risk factors. The web solution allows the user to configure a PV power system and perform a simplified calculation and comparison of the expected PV energy yield, selecting various configuration options. By studying the various factors, the user can understand the benefits and risks linked to a particular location, as well as the configuration of the PV power plant.
Solargis Prospect also offers global maps of over 20 parameters relevant to the performance and risk assessment of PV power systems to explore geographical conditions and understand them globally. After setting up a project, the user can access long-term yearly and monthly average values of solar resource, climate, and environmental parameters through interactive tables and graphs. The data is recalculated in real time upon any change in the PV configuration, allowing the user to study the impact of various factors on the power plant performance. Solargis Prospect also features a comparison tool where the parameters of projects and their technical configurations can be compared. A project report and basic data and calculation results can be downloaded.
As a part of Solargis Prospect, a basic map data set is free. A trial is also available to registered users and includes a full analysis for a limited number of sites.
Solargis Prospect is available online at https://apps.solargis.com/prospect/
Interactive map of solar validation sites
The interactive map of the Solargis solar model validation sites aims to offer access to high-quality solar resource data from the Solargis model and ground measurements, and present their strengths and limitations based on a scientific comparison. Solargis offers data from both sources for a selection of sites. The ground measurements are quality-controlled so that they can be reliably compared to the model outputs.
The ground-measured data is compared to the Solargis satellite-based model time series to offer a view of the state-of-the-art solar resource modeling. This enables a better understanding of the features and benefits of satellite-based solar resource data, as well as the complementarity of ground measurements in achieving more accurate solar resource estimates in the solar industry.
The quality assessment and validation reports are an important part of the database, as some ground-measured datasets can be of insufficient quality. The objective is to demonstrate that a substandard quality of ground measurements may not always be easy to see, and the data without rigorous quality control can lead to incorrect conclusions and decisions. By showing the outputs of the quality assessment, the readers are given a chance to check the frequent measurement data issues and learn about the methods used for their identification.
The model validation statistics are shown based on the use of quality-controlled measurements. In a broader view, the database promotes using high-quality data in solar assessment studies and data analytics.
The map is available online at https://solargis.com/technology/methodology/accuracy-and-comparisons/overview
Interactive configurator of Global Tilted Irradiation
The solar geometry – how the Sun moves in the sky during the day and year – and its impact on different types of PV module mounting are intuitively difficult to understand. Yet this interplay forms the basis of the reasoning for the different types of mounting – fixed tilt or sun-tracker being the most used ones. The interactive Global Tilted Irradiation (GTI) configurator is offered to study the impact of different PV module mounting strategies on the GTI captured by the PV modules. The user can study the impact of the Sun geometry, incidence angle, and behavior of trackers under different azimuth, tilt, rotation limits, and other parameters visualized in 3D graphics.
The configurator helps to understand the practical implications of the PV module mounting, as well as the arguments for and against using each mounting in a particular situation.
The web application is available at https://apps.solargis.com/gti-configurator/, subject to the applicable Creative Commons license.
Interactive PV power plant design tool
Solargis Evaluate© is an interactive, visual, and easy-to-use web solution for optimizing photovoltaic design, and PV energy yield simulation and evaluation. Feedback sessions with PV design engineers, module and inverter manufacturers, and technical advisors revealed an interest in a user-friendly yet powerful software for design optimization of PV energy systems. The technical teams required interactivity, instant feedback, and reliable representation of all components of a PV power system.
As a result of the feedback sessions, a series of intelligent defaults, adaptive settings, and system validations help technical users build a valid photovoltaic power plant quickly, taking site location constraints into account. Once the predefined design is applied, users can experiment with configuration parameters to explore the limits of a physically valid design.
The interactive PV power plant design tool is one of key components of the Solargis Evaluate commercial solution for the evaluation of PV power plants. Solargis Evaluate offers its users a number of functionalities focused on PV design and evaluation:
- Select a site and access Solargis solar and meteorological time series data
- Analyze solar and meteorological parameters through comprehensive charts and statistics
- Utilize a dedicated 3D design configurator to design a power plant within minutes
- Adjust the power plant design based on the results of a quick prefeasibility simulation
- Experiment with different designs, PV components, mounting types, and electrical connections
- Simulate each design’s PV potential and conduct a thorough analysis
- Generate a report that evaluates the site’s solar resource, climate, PV energy yield potential, estimated losses, and long-term PV power production forecast.
As part of the Solargis Evaluate solution, we provide the technical professionals and students with a free trial access to the PV system configurator. The trial access is offered in a limited version:
- Usage is strictly limited to learning purposes
- Interested organizations need to register in the Solargis online platform and request a trial access
- The trial does not include the access to other features:
- Solar and climate data
- Terrain and albedo data
- Analytical and simulation tools.
Users interested in the trial access can contact Solargis at contact@solargis.com
