Horizon shading

You can use Prospect’s horizon editor o customize the horizon profile by following these instructions:

1. Go to the section “Project info”
2. Click on “Modify horizon” below the Project horizon and sun path chart.
3. Draw your customize profile directly on the sun azimuth - sun elevation chart or if you prefer, edit the azimuth-elevation data pairs on the right column. To completely remove the horizon shading effect, please set the data pairs to 0:0 to make sure that horizon is not applied to the results.
4. Save changes and check the effect on received irradiation and expected energy yield.
5. You can check the effect of the modified horizon under the section "PV performance".
6. If you want to set the original horizon values again, click again on "modify horizon" and then on "set default".

Here is how you can download the horizon profile in Prospect:

1. Login to Prospect app, select your location on the map, save and open the project.
2. Click on Project detail > Project info > Modify horizon.
3. Download the HOR file to your computer choosing "export to HOR file".

See more info on our section Integrations if you want to use it on third-party software.

By default, horizon shading is considered in the Prospect app and there is no need to apply it additionally. You can read about the source of horizon data on our website. Our team has invested a lot of time in fixing errors in publicly available terrain datasets such as SRTM and patching together multiple data sources, to create a global terrain database at 90 m resolution with almost no gaps or errors. The horizon data is then created from this terrain database.

Prospect shading includes PV system self-shading and far shading from the horizon profile. This loss is the difference between the “theoretical” and “site specific” global horizontal irradiation (GHI).

This calculation does not include the effect of shading from nearby objects. However, you can edit the horizon profile using the horizon editor to include the effect of shading by modelling the elevation angle of nearby objects for each direction (azimuth). Please note that this will only result in approximate results, since the effect on electrical generation of partial shading on the modules will not be taken into account.