How to define last two fields for the object generator:photovoltaic?

asked 2017-02-22 12:41:48 -0600

solarpanel_m
81 ●2

updated 2017-02-23 13:18:48 -0600

__AmirRoth__

4446 ●5 ●17 http://bleedinggreenna...

I am trying to define solar panel area coverage on the roof of a building but I do not really understand how to define the number of series strings in parallel and the number of modules in series. Do these values depend on the area of the roof being covered or the area of the solar modules/panels? How can I calculate these values?

The solar panel model that I am using for this simulation is the Kyocera KC 120-1, object 43 in the SandiaPVdata data set. The dimensions of the roof for this simulation are length=27.69m, width=18.46m. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you in advanced!

answered 2017-02-23 12:07:49 -0600

adambgnr

759 ●1 ●2 ●7 http://www.linkedin.co...

I'm afraid you can't calculate that. You have to get that information from the designer of your exact PV system. If it is not designed yet, or that information is not available, maybe you can guess from the type of the inverter:

If you know, that your inverter's nominal voltage is e.g.: 51 V, then you can assume, that there are 3 panels in series, because your panel's max power voltage is 16.9V and 51 / 3 is almost 16.9. So in this case the Number of Modules in Series will be 3 and the Number of Series Strings in Parallel will be the sum number of your panels / 3.

If you don't know anything about your inverter, then use an ElectricLoadCenter:Inverter:Simple. In this case maybe (this is just my guess) the voltage and current figures of the whole array are irrelevant, because maybe (this is just my guess again) e+ uses the voltage only to calculate inverter efficiency in case of a more complicated inverter object, like ElectricLoadCenter:Inverter:LookUpTable

Generally if you have limited available information on the systems that you want to model, use simple models, because sometimes increasing complexity may just increase overall estimation error: image description