Release Notes

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

- DNI forecasts from IFS model are now retrieved and post-processed. Previously only GHI forecasts from IFS model were used. This update is expected to improve accuracy of D0-D2 forecasts of Global Tilted Irradiation and thus also PV Electricity Output.

- The higher resolution IFS model is now also used for D0-D2 forecasts instead of GFS model for Egypt, Oman, Central Asia, Northern Europe, and parts of Zambia and Mozambique. Updated coverage maps for IFS forecast region can be seen here.

Updates to the Prospect app:

- Source of TEMP data is now ERA5

- Registration and activation of free trial simplified

- User interface translated to Russian

- Updated design for header menu and project detail menu

- Switch to Google recaptcha v3 (no need to click "I am not a robot")

- Improved design for switching between companies

- Last selected company is remembered if you sign in using a different computer/browser

- Several bug fixes

Translation of user interface to Russian and Portuguese languages.

- For many PV modelling applications it is preferred to have solar irradiation data in 1-minute or 5-minute time step. However, long history of measured solar radiation in 1 minute time step is not easily available. Nor is it possible to receive satellite imagery with frequency of 1-minute.

- We have created a model for stochastic generation of 1-minute solar radiation data from native data resolution of 10/15/30 minutes. The stochastic generation can also be used for generating 5-minute or 10-minute data from 15/30 minute time series. The methodology is explained here: https://solargis.com/docs/methodology/1-minute-solar-data

- Calculation of 1-minute TMY and time series of PV electricity output is also supported.

- Site specific albedo values used for calculation of GTI and shaded GHI

- Surface albedo is a key parameter that determines amount of reflected irradiation falling on the front-side of tilted PV modules . Reflected irradiation also impacts Global horizontal irradiation in regions where terrain is not flat. Until now, we had been using a default albedo value of 0.12 for calculation of time series of GHI and GTI. With release of model version 2.2.0 we will be using site-specific monthly averages of albedo for calculation of reflected irradiation. Technical specification of the albedo dataset to be used can be seen here: https://solargis.com/docs/methodology/albedo

Tools for measuring distance and area by drawing points on the maps