Optimize Energy Yield with sheds, for a given area/surface

[julmou]

Hello,

I have spent quite some time understanding how the mutual shading with sheds is estimated and calculated, and how it all works with the GCR and pitch and tilt and limit angle.

When choosing "Unlimited sheds" in the Orientation part, the "Shading Graph" and the "Show Optimization" tools are really useful to help us optimize our sheds (with the option of a constant limit angle, or a constant pitch (area ratio)).

However, I also note that this analysis is made for a given number of sheds and doesn't take into account that by increasing our GCR (shorter pitch) we can also increase the number of rows/sheds and thus increase our total of MWp we can install. Or said differently, the graphs show the optimization of the yearly irradiance per m2 of collector, but it doesn't take into account that by increasing the GCR we increase the number of m2 of panels (so the number of MWp installed), thus increasing the total energy yield.

Instead of deciding on a constant limit angle or a constant pitch/GCR, and then see which tilt would be optimum, as proposed by your model, is there a way to determine the best configuration (both pitch and tilt, as independent parameters) to simply get the max. energy yield from a given surface/area?

[Michele Oliosi]

Keeping a given ground surface area constant and filling the area with modules according to pitch and tilt needs is a more complex task than the optimization plots already available, and this is not available as a tool in PVsyst yet.

You could use the batch mode for this. In the case of a PV array, it is possible to modify the number of rows, as well as pitch, tilt, and other parameters. One should then calculate, in order to prepare the batch file parameters, the corresponding number of rows for a given pitch. This is not implemented as an automatic function in PVsyst. Note that the batch mode can output several variables as a csv, so the analysis of the results on excel would be quite simple.

I can see how this could be a cumbersome task. We will add a ticket to possibly offer this as a tool directly, and potentially simplify this procedure.