ndiorio

Hi Martin, I came up with a couple of quick questions: 1. For the shading of the diffuse irradiance caused by the horizon line, is there a reason why this would be present if there are no obstructions in the horizon? For instance, if you have a PV array in a flat field with nothing in the horizon, would you expect this quantity to be non-zero? I'm observing small losses for this in such a case. 2. For the module specific partial shading, is there a way to separate the beam portion from the diffuse portion in the output results? Additionally, is the beam shading calculation linear for this category since the mismatch is accounted for later on? Thanks again for you in-depth explanation. Best, Nick

Hi Martin, Thanks for your detailed explanation, I will go through it and let you know if additional questions arise. Best regards, Nick

Hello, I'm trying to run a basic simulation with one module tilted 30% facing south (azimuth 180 degrees), with a wall partially obstructing the view to the south. I've setup the scene, and when I run it there are outputs: Area South: Irradiance onto tilted surface [kWh/m2] Shading [kWh/m2] I'm finding that the shading losses compared to the irradiance (which I assume is the plane-of-array quantity) are much lower than I would expect. For a full year, I'm seeing: Shading - 25 kWh/m2 Area South: Irradiance onto tilted surface 1921 kWh/m2. Which is a 1.3% annual loss. However, when I compare the PV energy (DC) to a case without the shading obstruction I get: PV energy (DC) - with shading: 229.83 kWh PV energy (DC) - without shading: 348.31 kWh Which is a 34% annual loss. I realize converting from irradiance to DC power has other losses, but for the same system, same configuration with only a shading difference, I would ascribe most of this difference to shading. I would like to compute how much of the irradiance on the PV module is lost due to shading. Can you please explain what the shading outputs indicate and if there is a way to get more detailed outputs? I'd like to understand why I'm seeing so little shading loss reported compared to the hit in PV energy. Thanks, Nick

Hi Martin, Great, thanks for the information, I'm constantly debugging programs myself so I understand Thanks for posting the file, I'm still learning about the options available in PV*SOL so that will be helpful. With the PV module I was trying to evaluate primarily the shading behavior alone, and sized it to some unrealistic dimensions. I agree it is not a PV module which one would ever see in reality... Thanks again for the detailed explanation, very helpful! Nick

Hi Martin, Here is an example file where the simulation only appears to run for about 54 days. Thanks, Nick RunningShort.pvprj

Hello, I am trying to run a simulation for a system where I've set up a 3D shading scene. When I click to generate results, two simulations occur. The first is the calculation of shading losses. This appears to run for the full 365 days. The next simulation says "Simulating", but only runs until day 239 before stopping. Then, the "Hourly Values" csv file only has data until August 28. Is there a setting somewhere that would govern this behavior? Thanks