System Advisor Model (SAM) Introduction Slides and Demo Nate Blair - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

System Advisor Model (SAM) Introduction Slides and Demo Nate Blair NREL

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NREL System Modeling T

• ols

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Free software that enables detailed performance and financial analysis for renewable energy systems

System Advisor Model (SAM)

System Advisor Model

http://sam.nrel.gov/download

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Steps to Modeling Renewable Energy

Weather Data System Specs Electricity Production Costs System Losses Compensation Financing Incentives Results lts

Annual, Monthly, and Hourly Output, LCOE, NPV, Payback, Revenue, Capacity Factor

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T echnologies

Photovoltaics Detailed & PVWatts Battery Storage Wind Concentrating solar power Geothermal Biomass Solar water heating

Financial Models

Behind-the-meter residential commercial third-party ownership Power purchase agreements single owner equity flips sale-leaseback Simple LCOE calculator

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What can you do with SAM?

• Model a variety of technologies in a consistent platform
• Access high-quality performance and economic models

developed by NREL, Sandia, and other partners

• Calculate financial metrics such as LCOE, NPV, payback

for projects in different markets

• Perform parametric and uncertainty analyses
• View and export modeling results in a variety of ways
• Access extensive help documentation, view tutorials and

webinars

System Advisor Model

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Who uses SAM? Why?

• Lawm

wmak aker ers and Utili liti ties es

… to study how a policy would affect the economics of a typical system … to analyze different types of utility rate structures for renewables

• Develo

veloper ers and Engine ineer ers

… to compare technologies, sites, or configurations … to estimate the Levelized Cost of Energy for a system

• Researche

chers

… to examine how an innovative concept might be able to lower the Levelized Cost of Energy … to estimate the technical potential of a technology in a region

• Student

udents

… to learn about renewable energy … to explore financing structures for renewable energy

System Advisor Model

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SAM Users

System Advisor Model

Over 65,000 registered users in 130+ countries SAM is started ~every 2 ½ minutes ( > 600 times per day) 90+ webinars with 113,346 views

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• Website – http://sam.nrel.gov
• Support Forum – Ask your question!
• General info/ online help file / contact info
• YouTube Channel
• https://www.youtube.com/user/SAMDemoVideos
• All prior webinars and seminars
• Bi-Monthly Round Table sessions
• SAM team asks questions live and interactively
• Email Support
• SAM support can provide email support if

question/bug is involved

How to Interact with the SAM team and get help?

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Battery Model

• Designed primarily for behind-the-meter analysis

(residential and commercial scale systems)

• Lithium ion and lead acid chemistries including submodels

for cell voltage, capacity, thermal, degradation, and replacements

• Highly configurable manual dispatch controller
• Integrated with PV system lifetime analysis to capture

economic effects of capacity degradation and costs of replacement

• Incentives, complex utility tariff structures, and financing

costs included in analysis.

• Validated with laboratory measured test data for two

systems.

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3D shading calculator

• Fully integrated into SAM
• Calculates linear beam shading losses and sky

diffuse view factor loss

• Imports 2D mapping underlays from Bing maps
• Diurnal or hourly/subhourly time series shade

simulation

• Estimation of nonlinear losses for shaded

parallel strings

• Scripting to automate panel layout and

import/export geometry data

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Irradi diance Transposition using Isotropic, HDKR, or Perez Measured plane of array (POA) input Shadi ding Irregular obstruction shading from 3D scene Self-shading for regularly spaced rows External input from SunEye, Solar Pathfinder Snow cover loss model Module Simple efficiency model Single diode model (CEC database or datasheet) Extended single diode model (for IEC-61853 tests) Sandia PV Array Performance Model Inverter Sandia/CEC grid-tied inverter model Datasheet part-load efficiency curve System Sizing wizard or electrical layout Multiple subarrays Fixed, 1 axis, backtracking, azimuth axis, 2 axis Battery storage Degrada dation

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Extrapolated single year Lifetime simulation of all years Simul mulation

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1 minute to 1 hour time steps

Detailed photovoltaic model

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New complex utility rate model options

Additional net metering options have been added and implemented to help users understand the impact of different scenarios currently implemented in several states. New data browser categorizes and consolidates results. Linkage with OpenEI rate database improved and expanded for some international rates.

http://www.openei.org

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• Load profile in a

file that can be scaled for monthly values.

• Use data about

the building to create load data with consistent weather data Several ways to enter building load data

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• Desktop Application
• Advanced Analysis Features
• Parametric
• Stochastic (and for O&M)
• P50/P90
• Built-in Scripting Language
• Macros
• Written with SAM scripting language
• Software Development Kit (SDK)
• C/C++, Python, C#, Java
• Matlab, VBA
• PHP
• iOS And Android (NEW!!!)
• Web Services API (PVWatts Only)
• Open-sourced SAM code (NEW!!!)

Extending SAM

SAM Simulation Core (SSC)

inputs

• utputs

C/C++ MATLAB Python .NET Java

External applications

PV CSP SWH Financials

SAM project file  Code SDK

SAM Demonstration (Additional Detail Slides Follow)

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Transparency

• Look at the underlying code of a model that you are

interested in. Flexibility

• Change the way a model works for research purposes
• Change electricity rate models to be specific to your country

Collaboration

• Add new technology models
• Add a new battery dispatch model

We’d love to learn how you use SAM’s open-source code! It helps us tailor our efforts and get funding to develop the tool.

What kinds of things can you do with SAM open-source?

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SAM Code Architecture

Operating System C++ Compiler wxWidgets LK WEX SSC SAM Windows, OSX, Linux (CentOS 7, Ubuntu 16.04, Fedora 25, Mint 18.2) Visual Studio 2013, GCC 4.8.5 minimum, libc 2.17 wxWidgets 3.1.0, GUI framework Scripting support Custom widgets for SAM, contains DView project Technology model libraries. Contains SAM SDK. Graphical User Interface. Development dependencies NREL libraries Core SAM code

Thank you! Questions?

Janine Freeman - project lead, photovoltaic and wind models Nick DiOrio - code architecture, battery storage models Nate Blair - emeritus lead, financials, costs, systems Steve Janzou - programming, utility rate structures (subcontractor) Paul Gilman - user support and documentation (subcontractor) Ty Neises - concentrating solar power models Mike Wagner - concentrating solar power models

http://sam.nrel.gov

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In this mode, PV system degradation is (correctly) applied to the DC output of the PV modules, and so can be used to assess inverter clipping levels as the system effective sizing ratio changes in time. When the system is new, much more DC power is generated than inverter capacity, resulting in significant

• clipping. As the modules degrade and produce less power, clipping is reduced in the later years of the system

DC power AC power

(30 years)

Lifetime Analysis