|
TRNSYS Users- The National Renewable Energy Lab in conjunction with Sandia
National Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy has been developing a
software tool for simulation of performance, costing and financing of
photovoltaic systems and concentrating solar power systems. Because this tool
has TRNSYS as the core performance engine, performing hourly simulations, the
development team felt that the TRNSYS community might be interested in knowing
about it. The Solar
Advisor Model is able to evaluate several types of financing (from residential
to utility-scale), detailed incentive programs and a variety of
technology-specific cost models for several and, eventually, all SETP
technologies. The SETP technologies currently represented in SAM include
concentrating solar power (CSP) parabolic trough systems and photovoltaic (PV)
flat plate and concentrating technologies. Other technologies to be added
include dish/Stirling CSP, power tower CSP and refined PV models. There are several
non-standard TRNSYS components written for this activity which we are planning
to be share with the TRNSYS community shortly.
For more information regarding the
capabilities of the SAM software, access the Background
section of the SAM website. The SAM Development team has just released a new version of SAM
(Version 1.3). To download SAM, please visit the SAM website at: http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/sam We would also like to make TRNSYS users aware of a new beta online
weather data tool. NREL has been developing the Solar Satellite Data Download
Online Tool. This is an online method (using Google Maps) for locating and
downloading solar satellite data (commonly referred to as the Perez data)
combined with meterological data. This data comes in hourly annual files (TMY2
format for use with SAM and other tools) for the years 1998 through 2005 for
the continental United States only. The grid of locations is at a 10km
resolution meaning that there are literally thousands of locations throughout
the country. Many
SAM users and other simulation tool users have been interested in getting more
geographically and chronologically precise data. The associated meteorological
data (temperature, wind speed, etc.) will continue to be reviewed and enhanced
during the next year but the preliminary data is available through this tool. To
become an beta tester of this software and start downloading the data, just go
to http://rpm.nrel.gov and click the
'create new account' link. Please put the phrase “SAM” in your
proposed user name. Once you get approval (which is done manually by the
administrator), please read the three steps for downloading and then find your
desired location on the Google Maps interface (or the native RPM
interface). We would love any feedback on usability and proposed future
enhancements to the site. Nate Blair on behalf of the SAM Development Team |