Modeling Photovoltaic and Concentrating Solar Power Trough Performance, Cost, and Financing with the Solar Advisor Model: Preprint
A comprehensive solar technology systems analysis model, the Solar Advisor Model (SAM), has been developed to support the federal R&D community and the solar industry by staff at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Sandia National Laboratory. This model is able to model the finances, incentives, and performance of flat-plate photovoltaic (PV), concentrating PV, and concentrating solar power (specifically, parabolic troughs). The primary function of the model is to allow users to investigate the impact of variations in performance, cost, and financial parameters to better understand their impact on key figures of merit. Figures of merit related to the cost and performance of these systems include, but aren't limited to, system output, system efficiencies, levelized cost of energy, return on investment, and system capital and O&M costs. There are several models within SAM to model the performance of photovoltaic modules and inverters. This paper presents an overview of each PV and inverter model, introduces a new generic model, and briefly discusses the concentrating solar power (CSP) parabolic trough model. A comparison of results using the different PV and inverter models is also presented.
- Research Organization:
- National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC36-99-GO10337
- OSTI ID:
- 928609
- Report Number(s):
- NREL/CP-670-42922; TRN: US200811%%424
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Presented at SOLAR 2008 - American Solar Energy Society (ASES), 3-8 May 2008, San Diego, California
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
99 FEDERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS//MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
CAPITAL
FINANCING
INVERTERS
NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY LABORATORY
PERFORMANCE
SIMULATION
SOLAR ENERGY
SOLAR INDUSTRY
SYSTEMS ANALYSIS
NREL
NATHAN BLAIR
MARK MEHOS
CRAIG CHRISTENSEN
SOLAR ADVISOR MODEL
SAM
PHOTOVOLTAIC
PV
CONCENTRATING SOLAR POWER
CSP
CONCENTRATING PV
Energy Analysis