Skip to main content
OSTI.GOVU.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
 

PyPVRPM: Photovoltaic Reliability and Performance Model in Python

Journal Article · · Journal of Open Source Software
DOI:https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.04093· OSTI ID:1870450
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [1]
  1. Univ. of Central Florida, Orlando, FL (United States)
  2. Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations
The ability to perform accurate techno-economic analysis of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems is essential for bankability and investment purposes. Most energy yield models assume an almost flawless operation (i.e., no failures); however, realistically, components fail and get repaired stochastically. This package, PyPVRPM, is a Python translation and improvement of the Language Kit (LK) based PhotoVoltaic Reliability Performance Model (PVRPM), which was first developed at Sandia National Laboratories in Goldsim software (Granata et al., 2011) (Miller et al., 2012). PyPVRPM allows the user to define a PV system at a specific location and incorporate failure, repair, and detection rates and distributions to calculate energy yield and other financial metrics such as the levelized cost of energy and net present value (Klise, Lavrova, et al., 2017). Our package is a simulation tool that uses NREL’s Python interface for System Advisor Model (SAM) (National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 2020b) (National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 2020a) to evaluate the performance of a PV plant throughout its lifetime by considering component reliability metrics. Besides the numerous benefits from migrating to Python (e.g., speed, libraries, batch analyses), it also expands on the failure and repair processes from the LK version by including the ability to vary monitoring strategies. These failures, repairs, and monitoring processes are based on user-defined distributions and values, enabling a more accurate and realistic representation of cost and availability throughout a PV system’s lifetime.
Research Organization:
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office
Grant/Contract Number:
EE0008157; NA0003525
OSTI ID:
1870450
Report Number(s):
SAND2022-3712J; 704532
Journal Information:
Journal of Open Source Software, Journal Name: Journal of Open Source Software Journal Issue: 71 Vol. 7; ISSN 2475-9066
Publisher:
Open Source Initiative - NumFOCUSCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (1)

Evaluating Energy Impacts and Costs from PV Component Failures
  • Freeman, Janine M.; Klise, Geoffrey T.; Walker, Andy
  • 2018 IEEE 7th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion (WCPEC) (A Joint Conference of 45th IEEE PVSC, 28th PVSEC & 34th EU PVSEC) https://doi.org/10.1109/PVSC.2018.8547454
conference June 2018

Similar Records

Validation of PV-RPM Code in the System Advisor Model.
Technical Report · Sat Apr 01 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · OSTI ID:1367461
Evaluating Energy Impacts and Costs from PV Component Failures
Conference · Wed Nov 28 23:00:00 EST 2018 · Conference Record of the IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference · OSTI ID:1507677
Evaluating Energy Impacts and Costs from PV Component Failures: Preprint
Conference · Sun Nov 11 23:00:00 EST 2018 · OSTI ID:1482498

Related Subjects

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING