System Advisor Model: Flat Plate Photovoltaic Performance Modeling Validation Report

Freeman, J. ; Whitmore, J. ; Kaffine, L. ; Blair, N. ; Dobos, A. P.

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (U.S.)

关键词: Comparison;    Sam;    Solar Energy - Photovoltaics;    Energy Analysis;    Photovoltaics;   

DOI  :  10.2172/1115788
RP-ID  :  NREL/TP-6A20-60204
RP-ID  :  AC36-08GO28308
RP-ID  :  1115788

美国|英语

来源: UNT Digital Library

【 摘 要 】

The System Advisor Model (SAM) is a free software tool that performs detailed analysis of both system performance and system financing for a variety of renewable energy technologies. This report provides detailed validation of the SAM flat plate photovoltaic performance model by comparing SAM-modeled PV system generation data to actual measured production data for nine PV systems ranging from 75 kW to greater than 25 MW in size. The results show strong agreement between SAM predictions and field data, with annualized prediction error below 3% for all fixed tilt cases and below 8% for all one axis tracked cases. The analysis concludes that snow cover and system outages are the primary sources of disagreement, and other deviations resulting from seasonal biases in the irradiation models and one axis tracking issues are discussed in detail.