developer_mh

Hi Justin, it seems that you might have some legacy climate data files in your system that are not handled well by MeteoSyn. The fact that you have 4 versions of Stoke on Trent sounds like that this is the problem. I suggest to do the following in order to clean up your climate files: Open the projects where you have Stoke on Trent climate files in and temporarily select another climate location Save these projects Open MeteoSyn by clicking on the world icon next to the location selection: Go to the list view, select one of the Stoke on Trent files, right click and go to the file location In this folder, delete all Stoke on Trent files Go back to MeteoSyn, go to the Options View and select "Update database" Go to list view again and make sure that all Stoke on Trent locations are gone Then re-create a new climate data set the usual way, by clicking on "Create climate data for new location" Now open the project files from 1. again and select the new Stoke on Trent climate file Hope that helps, Martin

Hi Justin, when I create the climate file for the location Stoke on Trent in PV*SOL premium 2019 R5, I get an annual sum of global irradiation of 917 kWh/m² (the yield being something different as it describes the electrical energy that the PV plant is generating). Could you send a project file where your Stoke on Trent location with 1017 kWh/m² is included, please? Thanks and kind regards, Martin

Hi Justin, climate data were not updated between R4 and R5 of PV*SOL premium 2019, but the database was. Perhaps you use PV modules that were updated by the manufacturers? Kind regards, Martin

Hi Giovanni, my Italian is very limited but I understand your request as follows: I will forward this to my colleagues. Kind regards, Martin

Hi M.Khalifa, the inverters (and all other products) are entered into our database by the manufacturers. From time to time we will deploy and database update so that new products become available in PV*SOL. In this case, SMA has not yet entered the Tripower 60 and 75 yet. In such cases, please contact our database team at database@valentin-software.com, so that they can ask SMA to enter their new products. But for now I will forward your request to them. Thanks and kind regards, Martin

Hi Tim, the problem here is that PV*SOL internally handles the 3 inverters as one unit (actually in your case it should handle them as two units, since 50 modules are not distrubutable evenly on 3 inverters). If you want to connect a DC coupled battery system to a "2 x Inverter xyz" configuration, PV*SOL doesn't know to which of those 2 inverters it should attach the battery system to. That's why the warning 'In case of DC-coupled battery systems, only one inverter should be used in the first configuration' appears. To avoid that, make sure that the first inverter configuration appears only once in your system, like so: But even with this setup you won't be able to connect 3 battery systems with DC coupling to 3 PV inverters. At the moment you can only connect one or more battery systems to one PV inverter. But in general you are right, it should be possible to connect 3 battery systems to 3 PV inverters in the way you described. We will add that to our list of features, thanks for the input. Kind regards, Martin

? This is the funniest bug we had in a while! Can you reproduce it by any chance? I mean, could you provide a project file and steps (clicks) that will lead to pink panels? Or maybe green ones Kind regards, Martin

Hey Ricardo, have you tried the workaround mentioned above? Does it help you? Kind regards, Martin

Hello AJ Alriyadh, thank you for reporting this bug. We already know of it, but unfortunately we cannot reproduce the error so at the moment we can't find the source of the error. But you can try the following workaroud, which helps most of our customers who experience the same problem: Install the newest version of PV*SOL premium (right now it is 2018 R3) Run it once and close it, so that you find the file PVSOL.ini in this folder: C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\Valentin EnergieSoftware\PVSOL premium 2019\PVSOL.ini Open it in a text editor and search for the element <MainPagerWider>0</MainPagerWider> Change it to <MainPagerWider>-1</MainPagerWider> and save the file Start PV*SOL premium Could you tell us if your menu bars are visible now in the 3D visualisation? Thanks a lot and sorry for the inconvenience caused, Martin

Hi James, yes, sometimes it can be tricky to find a contact person for that, especially in big companies. I will forward this to my colleague from the database team, perhaps he can do something. Kind regards, Martin

Hi Tobias, danke erstmal für dein Lob, das freut uns sehr. Du könntest, um das zu umgehen, einfach die nicht aufgeständerten Module mit einem Winkel von 0° aufständern. Dann sehen sie zwar nicht ganz so aus wie flach auf das Dach gelegte Module, aber du kannst so verschiedene Aufständerungswinkel auf einer Dachfläche kombinieren: Hoffe, das ist in deinem Sinne, viel Erfolg und beste Grüße, Martin

Hi Justin, unfortunately there is no such "best" answer when it comes to irradiation, especially to the irradiation on the inclined plane. But I would recommend you to have a look at our help pages first to see how these models all connect (probably you are already aware of that): https://help.valentin-software.com/pvsol/2018/calculation/irradiation/ Then, in order to estimate the quality of the combination of the Hofmann model (for diffuse irradiation) and Hay & Davies (for the tilted plane) I would recommend these two papers which we published some years ago: The first one explains the Hofmann (my) model, and also validates it for 28 locations worldwide, 2 of which are in UK (Camborne and Lerwick) https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/2/248 The second one uses a bunch of irradiation models and combines them together, for different time resolutions as well (as the models behave very differently when using one hour or one minute time steps) https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/10/1495 The outcome of this is that the combination of Hofmann and Hay&Davies can be considered as the most "trustworthy". But we (the community in general) do not have much measurement data for the irradiation on the tilted plane, so the validation is difficult there. For Hannover, Germany and Boulder, USA we made a study that searched for the "best" model for the tilted plane: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/11/1688 Another very interesting study on that topic, but again without measurement data from UK is this one from Dazhi Yang: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038092X16302432?via%3Dihub And, finally, a good study that examines various diffuse models, espacially for UK (unfortunately the Hofmann model was not included, BRL wins): https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/2/181 Kind regards, Martin

Hi Martin, yes, you could send me the projects to my mail address which I will send you in a minute via private message. Please understand that for me it is a lot easier to explain what is going on if I have the project file, but I will try to give a general explanation. What distinguishes the three different measures "Module-independent shading", "Module-specific Partial Shading" and "Yield Reduction due to Shading" is (roughly) the following. Yield Reduction due to Shading is the result of simulating the whole PV system twice and compare the electrical output of the unshaded PV system with the electrical output of the "real" PV system. We have to simulate twice because the electrical output of a PV system is not proportional to the percentage of shading as this leads to lower module temperatures, lower currents and ohmic losses and so on. Module-independent shading is the minimum percentage of the diffuse irradiation (not direct!) that is not reaching the modules. Imagine it like this: For each module in the PV system we receive a diffuse shading factor from the 3D visualisation. The diffuse shading factor is a geometrical ratio of the portion of the sky dome that is visible to the module. It is 0 if the whole sky dome is visible (no horizon and no other shading objects) and 1 if the module doesn't see anything of the sky. Now we determine the minimum diffuse shading factor that occurs in the PV system and input this in the calculation of the module-independent shading. When we simulate, the diffuse irradiance on the modules is reduced by this factor for each time step. Module-specific Partial Shading is the electrical loss of energy in the modules due to shading of diffuse and direct irradiance. That is, for most of the modules there is a diffuse shading fraction left (except for the one with the lowest shading factor) that has to be taken into account, as well as all the shading of the direct irradiance by the horizon or near objects. In contrast to the first section in the Energy Balance, where we list irradiation energies in kWh/m², the second section lists electrical energies in kWh. Due to the electrical configuration of the modules it can happen that a geometrical direct shading factor of 0.05 leads to an electrical loss of 0.33, if a whole module substring is going down. So that's an important aspect here. Hope that helps... if that doesn't answer your questions fully, please don't hesitate to send me your project files. Kind regards, Martin

Hallo samessolar, doch, mit Strg und Mausrad kann man die Vorschau vergrößern und verkleinern. Also Strg-Taste gedrückt halten und dann das Mausrad bewegen (scrollen). Viel Erfolg und beste Grüße, Martin

then you can go with my second example, i.e. polystring and "Connect strings in series"

Hi Andrzej, you can connect the power optimizers in any imaginable way. Also only one per string, although this is not recommended. See this configuration for example, where I connect 5 modules in series on one Tigo TS4-L 32V: Keep in mind however, that the Tigo optimizers are not designed for such a configuration. The voltage and current ranges and also the power levels are designed for one module only, perhaps two if you have bad lighting conditions. If you want to configure a string with e.g. 9 modules without and only with power optimizer, you can do the following with the polystring feature: Hope that helps, kind regards, Martin

Hi Noé, R3 was released this morning, so if you want, you can update and check if you see the wiring diagram now. If not, we would be very interested on you log file under C:\ProgramData\Valentin EnergieSoftware\log\PVSOLpremium.log Also, in the newest folder that ends with a "T" in your temporary project folder at C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Valentin EnergieSoftware\temp\PVSOL premium 2019\ there should be a *.svg and *.pdf file, do you see them? And if you don't mind, it would be helpful if you could send us the dxdiag output, perhaps via private message. You can hit the Windows key, enter "dxdiag" and then "Save all information" and send us the txt file. Thanks a lot for your cooperation again, kind regards, Martin

Hi Ricardo, yes, the bug is fixed in the upcoming release, PV*SOL premium 2019 R3. Kind regards, Martin

Hi Martin, could you provide an example project so that we can reproduce the situation? Thanks a lot in advance, kind regards, Martin ps: sorry for answering so late, we are a bit busy with the new release right now..

Hi Dennis, the cabling feature is unfortunately not supported for module mountings right now. This is why you can't place anything there. You can use the cabling feature for modules that are placed directly on the roofs (Module Coverage). Kind regards, Martin

Hi Noé, I will answer in English, so that everyone else can understand the issue. First, let me rephrase your question in English (translated with deepl.com ) We are aware of the issue, but we can't reproduce it here. In the upcoming bugfix release (2019 R3) it will be possible to create the project report, even if the display of the wiring diagram fails. In order to find out the reason why the wiring plan fails, we would then be happy to receive the log files (after 2019 R3 is released). In the meantime, could you provide some information about your computer? Thanks a lot for your cooperation, kind regards, Martin

Hi Yvar, we just tested it again and here it works fine. Just ensure that you enable the corresponding option in the panel of the module configuration: Hope it helps, kind regards, Martin

So, just for the record, and in case that other users have a similar problem: In PV*SOL premium 2019 R2 there is a bug that can occur when you have the following setup: you edit a 3D project were shadows have already been calculated You add more objects in 3D so that the shading calculations are deleted Then you leave 3D, adopt the data to PV*SOL, but you don't recalculate the shadows When you then try to save the file, an error might occur, depending on the inverter configuration you have We will fix this bug in the next release. For now you can save the projects when you calculate the shadows again. Sorry for the inconvenience, Martin

Hi Ricardo, could you send me your log file under C:\ProgramData\Valentin EnergieSoftware\log per private message, please? Thanks a lot in advance, Martin

Hi Caio, perhaps you could try the following: Install the newest version of PV*SOL premium (right now it is 2018 R10, soon it will be 2019 R1) Run it once and close it, so that you find the file PVSOL.ini in this folder: C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\Valentin EnergieSoftware\PVSOL premium 2019\PVSOL.ini Open it in a text editor and search for the element <MainPagerWider>0</MainPagerWider> Change it to <MainPagerWider>-1</MainPagerWider> and save the file Start PV*SOL premium Could you tell us if your menu bars are visible now in the 3D visualisation? Thanks a lot and sorry for the inconvenience caused, Martin