As mandatory targets to increase the share of energy derived from renewable sources are being introduced by regulators across the globe, clean energy developers face the challenges of limited land availability. A growing number of solar designers have to work with complex designs including terrain restrictions and various shading scenarios. PVcase’s newest release is designed to help solar engineers to address these challenges and stay ahead of the curve.
PVcase 2.0 enables the generation of location and time-based shading projections, eliminating the need of any subsequent changes at the later stages of the design process. Engineers working on hilly projects will also be able to perform surface slope analysis on the north and south-facing single-axis tracker tables and set their piling range. “The ability to assess and mitigate shading losses in a few seconds saves an enormous amount of engineering time each day”, says David Trainavicius, CEO and founder of PVcase.
David believes that the 2.0 launch comes at a critical time for the solar industry. Now more than ever, he observes that the clients are being put under a lot of pressure to reduce the likelihood of cost overruns.
The latest version of PVcase software leverages a solar position algorithm, developed by the U.S.Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). “NREL’s algorithm has been an invaluable asset for modeling PVcase’s shading analysis capability. NREL are clear leaders in this space and have proved to deliver reliable results over the years. They were an easy choice for us”, says Douglas Geist, Chief Partnerships Officer at PVcase.
