Optimization tools

PVsyst provides several tools for plane orientation or sheds arrangements optimization.

Quick orientation optimization

Choosing fixed plane orientation in the orientations parameters will trigger this informative graph: These graphs display a rough evaluation of the transposition factor around the chosen tilt and azimuth (violet dot), as well as an indication of the possible optimum for your situation. It allows to quickly evaluate the quality of your orientation choice, as a function of the site and weather capabilities. Depending on the final use of your PV system, the transposition factor value may be evaluated for the full year (usual systems), winter (stand-alone systems, heating), or summer (water pumping).

In this example, we observe that for our site (Marseille) a tilt of 15° generates around 7.8% less energy than the yearly optimum, and the effect of the azimuth is very weak.

NB: this estimation is not always accurate: it is calculated by a simple algorithm based on the weather data monthly values (see weather Monthly calculations). It may thus differ from the final GlopInc value calculated by the hourly simulation.

Detailed transposition factor as function of the plane orientation

The tool available in Tools → Transposition factor offers a more accurate and general tool for the transposition factor evaluation function of the orientation, for any weather data file. This Transposition factor optimization will provide namely a graph like this:

As with the Quick orientation optimization, this evaluation may be obtained for the full year, or any set of chosen months.

More details about this tool here.

Sheds tilt effects

Designing a PV system organized in sheds is not an easy task. We often receive the question how to optimize the sheds in a PV system ? There is not a single answer to this question as this is a multi-variables problem (available area, available investment, price of supports, weight constraints, power limitation, regulation constraints, etc) and multi-criteria (what do you want to optimize: energy yield, system efficiency, cost of the energy, profitability, etc...).

Answering these questions requires the understanding of the impacts sheds arrangement have on your system.
To that purpose, a shed optimization tool is available in the unlimited sheds parameters definition, using the button Show Optimization. This tool provides a graph like this one for your "unlimited sheds" current definition:

More details about this tool here.

Sheds yield optimization tool

Variants using unlimited sheds have access to an optimization tool, allowing for parametric studies using various orientation parameters. The graph below shows an example with the grid production function of the tilt and azimuth based on hourly simulations.

This tool is accessible from the project's menu Advanced simulation → Optimization tool.

More details about this tool here.