Near-shading Model along a Slope

[moss-solar]

Is there a method to step tables down along a slope within a single "array", as PVsyst sees it? In this case, the real slope on our project is downward from south to north, which is cause for concern. We don't want to just pitch the land 3%, for instance, and model it that way, because that impacts installation cost, pile length, etc. But our group would like to accurately model tables that are stepped down as you progress north along the axis of each row in the array to get an understanding of the shading impact. Our current model assumes a flat topography for all tracker tables in the simulated array.

Thank you for any assistance you can provide.

[André Mermoud]

In the 3D editor:

When defining a "PV plane in sheds", you have the opportunity of specifying "shed-to-shed slope".

If you have different shading objects (or planes), you can always specify their altitude.

Now since the version 6.33, you can define a terrain ("Ground object"), and position your fields ("Tables") automatically according to the terrain altitude.

NB: You cannot specify a slope with the simplified orientation choice "Unlimited sheds".

[sneakypete92]

Hello,

As I understand it there are two ways to acheive a shed-to-shed slope between rows of fixed tilt collector field:

1) Specify a "Shed to Shed slope" in the object parameters menu, located between the "Shed tilt" and "Baseline slope" fields.

2) Create a ground object with the required slope (Ex. for a 10% slope, create a 100m x 100m ground object and raise each vertex on one side up to Z=10m) and use the "Position tables on scene" tool to place rows on top of the ground object.

Is there one method more favorable than the other?

What are the units for the "Shed to Shed slope" parameter? Degrees or Percent?

When I create a ground object with a 10% slope and separately create a shed field with a 10 [unit] Shed-to-Shed-slope from the same point, I would expect that they would match up when viewed from the ZxY perspective. When I view from this perspective (essentially a section cut along the slope) the rows of the shed field are increasingly spaced above the surface of the ground object. Is this because the shed field is in fact at a sleeper shed-to-shed slope than 10%? Or is this simply a "glitch" in the graphical capabilities of the 3D Construction environment, and it will actually simulate correctly?

Thank you for any help you can provide.

Pete

[cliebner]

Hi,

From my perspective, I would like to have confidence that pitch is maintained between rows as I adjust the ground slope. During construction, rows will be installed with the specified spacing, as measured over the ground regardless of slope.

From a little playing around in PVsyst (v6.48), it appears that the shed-to-shed slope method DOES maintain pitch.

However, if you use the Ground object and Zone method, be sure to define the pitch as 'cosine(slope angle)'. It seems that this may be because the Zone is defined and filled out in the x-y plane, so the pitch value that you enter to fill out the zone is actually the projection of the sloped pitch onto the x-y plane.

See attached images.

In my exercise, I created a ground object with coordinates (0,0,0), (0,20,0), (20,0,20), (20,20,20) (a -45 deg slope), and used the Fill Zone tool to create a field of 2 tables.

Next, I created a PV shed object, defined a -45 deg shed-to-shed slope, and positioned it on top of the tables in the ground zone.

PV modules for both the ground zone tables and the sheds have the same length-width dimensions and the same plane tilt.

Image 1: x-y view of the shed (pink) and zone tables (blue), with the measuring tool showing 10.0m between zone tables in the x-y plane.

Image 2: x-z view of the shed (pink) and zone tables (blue), with the measuring tool showing 14.15m between zone tables along the ground plane. cos^-1(10/14.15) = 45 deg

Image 3: x-z view of the shed (pink) and zone tables with new pitch defined as 10*cos(45 deg) = 7.07m (blue), with measuring tool showing 10.0m between BOTH sheds and zone tables.

Maybe this is obvious to everyone, but it took me a test simulation to figure it out. :)

1) x-y plane: sheds in pink

2) x-z plane: sheds in pink

3) x-z plane: sheds in pink with corrected zone tables