to
If you decide to upload a spreadsheet with a custom electricity demand profile:
- Use .csv format
- Include 1 full year of hourly data
- Not a leap year
- There should be only one column
- The first row (only) should be a heading
- The heading should be followed by 8760 rows of data
- You still need to enter the total annual electricity usage
Being able to use most of the solar electricity you produce onsite is often key to the financial viability of behind-the-meter solar.
This simulator estimates total electricity generation, percentage of production that can be used onsite, and percentage of production that will be exported to the grid. Based on the Irish climate. All estimates are approximate. Use PV GIS or Global Solar Atlas to get more accurate forecasts of electricity production
The tool lays simulated solar production over simulated electricity demand for one year
Electricity demand is simulated by scaling the chosen profile to the chosen annual demand level
Solar generation is simulated from Irish weather data for 2019. Estimates are scaled back to compensate for the bright weather that year. Specific location is Dublin. Generation will be ~10% higher along the South coast and ~10% lower in the North
Solar panels reach their rated peak power only a small proportion of the time. That's why 'DC over-sizing' often makes sense. For example, if you have 30kW of solar panels (DC) and a 20kW inverter (AC), max power generation will be limited to 20kW, but average power generation will be almost as high as it would with a 30kW inverter. This saves on inverter costs. Note a suitable inverter must be chosen if this is to be implemented.
Stefan Pfenninger and Iain Staffell (2016). Long-term patterns of European PV output using 30 years of validated hourly reanalysis and satellite data. Energy 114, pp. 1251- 1265. doi: 10.1016/j.energy.2016.08.060
Angizeh, Farhad; GHOFRANI, ALI; Jafari, Mohsen A. (2020), “Dataset on Hourly Load Profiles for a Set of 24 Facilities from Industrial, Commercial, and Residential End-use Sectors”, Mendeley Data, V1, doi: 10.17632/rfnp2d3kjp.1
Sponsored by EnergyD: Ireland's Trusted Solar Energy Experts
Programmer: Dominic Ó Gallachóir
Created using R Shiny