Release Notes

Possibility to define custom inverter efficiency value and transformer loss value

Fixed bug with temperature data in Colombia. It was found that temperature data in 2002 (months: Mar, Apr, May and June) and July 2013 for a site in Colombia was faulty. Sudden drops, as much as 9°C was observed and it was suspected that this issue occurs also in other sites in the complex terrain. For the majority of datasets delivered for sites in the region, the drop in temperature was negligible and was therefore not spotted earlier.

Temperature data for 2002 and 2013 was re-downloaded from ERA5 servers and this solved the issue. The real cause is not known. However, we have implemented additional monitoring to prevent such situations in the future.

It was discovered that in some regions, clear-sky GHI and DNI was not correctly calculated for few months in 2019, which resulted in small error in solar radiation estimates. To remove these errors, we re-calculated data for 2019 for regions covered by GOES-W, HIMAWARI, and MSG satellites.

Key features:

- Responsive design to facilitate use of Prospect app also on mobile devices

- CSV data download for directly import of data to PVsyst

- Possibility to specify rotation limits for PV power plant with 1-axis tracker

- Wind Speed, CDD, and HDD parameters now included also in Basic plan

Other improvements and bug fixes:

- PDF report now includes user defined unit settings

- Improved design - Improved toolbars and unification of buttons and modals

- Turkish language version

- Fixed issue with disappearing graphics in horizon editor window

- Set economic defaults for floating solar PV systems

- Updated login logic - when unsigned user saves project, the project is added upon sign-in

- Possibility to re-send verification email after expiry of verification link

You can now import Prospect monthly data into PVsyst. See this guide for further details.

GOES-West satellite covering North-West continental US and Pacific was replaced by the new generation GOES-S (GOES-17) satellite. A new Solargis model based on GOES-S data was released

Key features:

- The frequency of data acquisition has been increased from 30 minutes to 10 minutes, allowing for delivery of time series in 10 minutes time step

- Data from 1 January 2020 onward are calculated using inputs from the new GOES-S satellite.

- More spectral channels make it possible to improve classification of complex patterns of clouds, fog, ice and snow

- Spatial resolution of satellite imagery used in the Solargis model has been increased to 2 km (at the sub-satellite point). The new data also has better geometrical stability. These updates improve the model accuracy in coastal zones, mountains, and complex geographies.

Floating PV is now available as a configuration option for energy yield simulation in the Prospect app. For floating PV systems, calculation of thermal losses is done differently to account for cooling losses as result of evaporation of water. The default soiling and mismatch losses are higher compared to ground-mount PV systems.

Note: This feature is available only with the Prospect Pro plan

It is now possible to select PV configuration with 1-axis horizontal NS tracker in Prospect app. Note that this feature is available only with Prospect Pro plan.

- Default rotation limit of tracker is set as ± . In next release it is planned to allow user to edit the rotation limits

- Currently it is possible only to select option with backtracking strategy enabled. Prior to the release of this feature we have done extensive cross-validation of the Solargis PV simulation model with that of PVsyst and NREL SAM. Whilst there is a good match in results between Solargis and PVsyst for trackers without self-shading (backtracking enabled) there are significant deviations in results for 1-axis tracker without backtracking. For this reason, further validation is required before we support 1-axis trackers without backtracking. If you have access to PV production data that can be used for validation of Solargis model for tracker systems without back-tracking, we would be very interested to hear from you.

Horizon data can now be exported as a .HOR file. This is useful if you wish to simulate energy yield using 3rd party simulation tools.

Information on source of horizon data can be seen here.

PDF and XLSX reports in Prospect app can now be generated also in the following languages:

- Simplified Chinese

- Japanese

- Korean

- Portuguese

- Russian

- French

- Turkish