Shading Analysis in Complicated Environment

[Amy]

Hi, I am a new user of PVsyst and I am using it to analyze solar production on the roof of urban area surrounded by high-rise buildings, which

From what I read, buildings seems could not to be counted as "horizon" but only as "near shading" objects.

If my site is located in the middle of a city with many buildings nearby (in different height, shape, and direction), instead of drawing the buildings one by one in your system, or importing a lot 3D data into the scene, would more general data from tools like Suneye be able to help? (Could I simply treat the buildings as city skyline and analysis them like horizon?)

[dtarin]

Hi Amy,

From the help section, it recommends shading objects should be considered as "far" if they are a distance away from the array which is equal to 10x the size of the array. How this is determined is not known to me. Personally, for urban areas, I have modeled the buildings in the shade scene as near shading objects. It would be interesting to see the comparison between Suneye data converted to a far horizon profile versus the near shading method.

[MicheleANE]

I think you should model at least the closest buildings in the 3D scene or you would loose the partial shading behavior that horizon line doesn't produce.

Best regards

Michele

[Amy]

Dear Solarguru & Michele,

I has been on trip and couldn't reply earlier but thanks a lot for both of your insights. I think I will try the Suneye data for my cases as most of those buildings are definitely over 10 times away from my site (and keep using 3D drawings for those near shading objects.

Best Regards,

Amy