PVSyst Tutorial 22.525 Getting Started *  After opening PVSyst, the home screen appears. If you already have a saved ﬁle, you would open it up now. *  The four main options are: *  Preliminary Design: start here if you want a quick analysis of a project *  Project Design: full-‐ﬂedged project design *  Databases: weather and system components—very complete *  Tools: Whole bunch of interesting data can be plotted, put into a table, etc. Tools *  Click on Tools, then select “Electrical behavior of PV arrays” *  Select tab “Array with shaded cells” *  Select a module (pick SunPower SPR-‐X21-‐255) *  Leave 80% for shading ratio, enter “9” for number of modules in series, “1” for parallel *  Leave “0” for diode protection *  Leave “only one cell” for “shaded cells distribution” Result: Note that Max-‐power drops By 11% for entire String with just One cell shaded! Shading Tool, con’t *  Now try changing the number of shaded cells in one module to 10 and see the impact! *  Now add bypass diodes and see the improvement *  Note how you can display either P vs. V or I vs. V Try Tables/Graphs of Solar Parameters *  Select United Kingdom, then Cambridge *  Then select “sun’s height” and click on “graph” button *  This will give you the sun’s height in degrees above horizon (aka solar altitude angle) vs. legal (i.e., local) time of day *  Summer and winter soltice dates are given, as well as four other “paths” for complimentary dates Preliminary Design *  Click on Grid Connected *  Then ﬁrst select “Site and Meteo” *  Pick Boston from drop down list. Note how ﬁle name changes to “Grid system pre-‐sizing at Boston” *  Now select “Horizon” *  This tool lets you create shading obstacles to mimic shading from trees, building, etc. *  You can simply drag the shade points with mouse *  Or, you can even import Solmetric SunEye data! “Far Shadings” can be simulated Now Click on “System” *  You can choose from specifying the collector (aka array’s) active area, its nominal (dc) power rating, or desired yield (in MWh/year) *  Choose area if you are trying to model how much energy could be collected from given roof *  Choose power if you know how large your want the system to be (e.g., client can spend $$$ which translates into a certain size system based on install cost *  Choose annual yield if you are mostly interested in energy harvesting potential *  Select “nominal power” and type in “20” for size System Speciﬁcation, con’t *  Note how you can input array tilt and azimuth angles. The default is 30 deg and 0 deg, respectively *  Click on “show optimization” and you learn the eﬀects of changing tilt and azimuth on annual yield (% loss) *  Or, you can see impact on either summer or winter periods—could be important if client is concerned with electricity rate (price) schemes Click on the “More!” button *  Click sun shields—this is for using PV modules as window overhangs (or “shields”) *  Click “sheds disposition” *  “Pitch” = row spacing in meters; try changing this number and see how drawing changes *  “Collector band width” Now click on “Next” *  Basic parameters selected: *  *  *  *  *  Module type (pick standard) Technology (pick monocrystalline) Mounting disposition (pick ground based) Ventilation property (pick ventilated) Click OK *  Back on main screen, click on “Results” Customizing Results *  Click on “price tag” on left and change currency to dollars *  Then click on “edit costs” *  Look at “Category”; defaults to “speciﬁc pre-‐sizing costs (all systems); long, long list of changeable costs *  But, select “grid-‐connected system” pre-‐sizing from menu and nine “derate”-‐like factors appear which you can adjust Customizing Results, con’t *  Leave the eﬃciency values at their defaults for now (you can play with them later) *  Go back to “speciﬁc pre-‐sizing costs”, and change default “speciﬁc maintenance cost” from 80 Euro to 10 euro (per kW) *  Default seems really high *  Back on main results screen, note the parameters at the top center—these can be changed *  Try changing from 20 kW to 30 kW—it will always ask if you want to save the original (i.e., 20 kW) results Results, con’t *  Checkout the totals displayed in the upper right corner *  Area of array *  Annual yield (in MWh) *  Investment (total installed cost—but not including incentives!) *  Energy cost ($/kWh) *  This is the annual cost (loan payments + mx) divided by yield (in kWh): $6527/27313kWh = $0.24/kWh Results, con’t *  Now select the “table” button *  These results look at bit like PVWatts *  If you multiply the “shed-‐shading” result by the system’s area, then multiply by the module eﬃciency, then by the total derate factor (these were back on the “Edit cost” page), you will get the system output per day results *  Take July: (6.02 kWh/m^2-‐day)*(125 m^2) *(0.16)*(0.842) = 102.2 kWh/day Results, con’t *  Note that there is ﬁnally a “help” button visible, which when clicked will open up the PVSystm help ﬁle Finishing with preliminary *  Click okay *  Takes you back to preliminary design homepage. Note that you can always come back and reopen the ﬁle you just created using the “ﬁle” menu at the top left of this page *  Click exit, takes you back to the PVSyst main page Project Design