Setup Yield Calculation | SolarFarmer Documentation (2024)

The 'Setup yield calculation' page allows you to:

• Choose the resources to use for an energy calculation (site layout, solar resource, and horizon).
• Set various parameters that will affect the whole calculation (such as the soiling and electrical effects,model parameters and settings).
• Run the energy calculation
  • Choose the calculation type (2D or 3D) and where to run it (locally or cloud).

(click to enlarge)

Main settings

Advanced settings

You won't generally need to change these settings. But for more advanced users, here's a description of what they are:

2D (Simple Model) vs 3D (Full Model)

There are two model options when running the energy yield calculations:

1. The 3D (Full) Model
   This is the full shading model - the 3D location and orientation of all PV modules is considered, as well as the exact stringing layout that is used for each string.This takes longer to complete than the 2D simple model, but is the most accurate, particularly for complex terrain.

   • For fixed-tilt sites shading is considered from other fixed-tilt racks, shading obstacles and terrain.

   • For single-axis tracker sites accurate geometric shading is used for row-to-row shading between trackers. Shading obstacles and terrain are used for the diffuse shading component, but not yet implemented for the beam shading component.

2. The 2D (Simple) Model
   This is a much-simplified model based on the PVsyst sheds model. Shortcuts and assumptions are made that speed up the calculation by a large factor, but the results are not as accurate as the 3D Full Model as undulating terrain and complex shading are not taken into account.

   See Also

   Site Layouts | SolarFarmer Documentation

   When running the 2D calculation in the cloud it calculates the average slope of each layoutregion and uses this sloped plane as the terrain for each layout region (they may be different). There is the option to force it to use horizontal terrain should you wish. Running 2D calculations locally always uses horizontal planes for the terrain.

   Use the 2D model when first setting up a site when accuracy isn't too important. Switch to the 3D model once you are happy with all the parameters and settings.

Running Locally or in the Cloud

Calculations can be run either locally (on the PC that SolarFarmer in installed on) or in the cloud using the SolarFarmer web API.

See Calculation Feature Comparison to see some of the differences in feature support between running calculations locally and in the cloud.

Running calculations locally

Select Local computer to run the 2D or 3D calculation on the PC that SolarFarmer is installed on. The speed that the calculation runs will depend on the configuration (number of CPU cores and available RAM) of your PC. Your PC may not have sufficient memory to run some very large sites in 3D.

Running calculations in the cloud

Select Cloud to run the calculation in the cloud using the SolarFarmer web API.

Set the optional Project ID parameter (a string). This value will then appear in the 'Project ID' column in the 'Model chain runs' tab of the web API website for each calculation run in the cloud. This allows you to identify and group your related cloud calculations.

See Installation Guide for how to set up running calculations in the cloud on your machine by retrieving and setting your API access token.

All users (with an access token) will be able to run 2D calculations in the cloud. 3D calculations will currently only run for you if you havethis service enabled by the SolarFarmer support team. This is currently in 'private-preview' whilst we improve the speed and reliability of 3D cloud calculations.

To determine if you have the 3D cloud calculation enabled, hover over the 'Connected to API' string and it will display the services available to you.You should see '2D calculation' and those that have it enabled will also see '3D calculation'.

The home page of the web API website (https://solarfarmer.dnv.com/) also lists the cloud services that are available to you once you are logged in.

Write Detailed Time-Series Files

When an energy calculation is run, if selected, detailed time-series result files are written to a folder (default name "Testing") next to the workbook.

Check the 'Append current date and time to folder name' option to append the current time to the folder name, otherwise the results will be written over each time.

You can set these through scripting with the following settings:

Workbook.CalculationSettings.WriteOutTestingValidationFiles = true;Workbook.CalculationSettings.ValidationFilesFolder = @"C:\temp\outputFiles";Workbook.CalculationSettings.AppendDateToValidationFilesFolderName = true;

When running a local calculation the files written are:

See Time-Series Results Files for details on the contents of these files.

When running a calculation in the cloud no files are written by default. The following output files are available when you enable them via scripting:

To select the output files written to file, turn the export on or off in scripting by setting the corresponding workbook setting to true or false before running the calculation:

Workbook.WorkbookSettings.ReturnPvSystFormatTimeSeriesResults = true;Workbook.WorkbookSettings.ReturnDetailedTimeSeriesResults = true;Workbook.WorkbookSettings.ReturnLossTreeTimeSeriesResults = true;

See Cloud Time-Series Results Files for details on the contents of these files.

Write Results Files

When an energy calculation is run, if selected, result summary files are written to a folder within a folder (default name "Results") next to the workbook.

The name of the folder the files are written to is made up of the workbook name, the site layout name, and optionally the current date and time.

The files written are:

You can set these through scripting with the following settings:

Workbook.CalculationSettings.SaveResultFiles = true;Workbook.CalculationSettings.ResultFilesFolder = @"C:\temp\results";Workbook.CalculationSettings.AppendDateToResultsFolderName = true;