PVWatts® Calculator

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Name

PVWatts Calculator

Screenshots

Focus Topic

Energy production of grid-connected PV

Primary Purpose

Estimates the energy production of grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) energy systems throughout the world. It allows to easily develop estimates of the performance of potential PV installations.

Description

NREL's PVWatts® is a web application developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) that estimates the electricity production of a grid-connected roof- or ground-mounted photovoltaic system based on a few simple inputs. To use the calculator, you provide information about the system's location, and basic design parameters. PVWatts® calculates estimates of the system's annual and monthly electricity production.

Important Note. PVWatts® is suitable for very preliminary studies of a photovoltaic system that uses modules (panels) with crystalline silicon or thin film photovoltaic cells. PVWatts® production estimates do not account for many factors that are important in the design of a photovoltaic system.

Mathematical Description

No response

Website

https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/index.php

Documentation

https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/index.php

Source

https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/index.php

Year

2013

Institution

NREL

Funding Source

DOE

Publications

0

Publication List

No response

Use Cases

No response

Infrastructure Sector

• Atmospheric dispersion
• Agriculture
• Biomass
• Buildings
• Communications
• Cooling
• Ecosystems
• Electric
• District heating
• Forestry
• Health
• Hydrogen
• Individual heating
• Land use
• Liquid fuels
• Natural Gas
• Transportation
• Water

Represented Behavior

• Earth Systems
• Employment
• Built Infrastructure
• Financial
• Macro-economy
• Micro-economy
• Policy
• Social

Modeling Paradigm

• Analytics
• Data
• Discrete Simulation
• Dynamic Simulation
• Equilibrium
• Engineering/Design
• Optimization
• Visualization

Capabilities

Estimates the energy production of grid-connected photovoltaic

Programming Language

• C – ISO/IEC 9899
• C++ (C plus plus) – ISO/IEC 14882
• C# (C sharp) – ISO/IEC 23270
• Delphi
• GAMS (General Algebraic Modeling System)
• Go
• Haskell
• Java
• JavaScript(Scripting language)
• Julia
• Kotlin
• LabVIEW
• Lua
• MATLAB
• Modelica
• Nim
• Object Pascal
• Octave
• Pascal Script
• Python
• R
• Rust
• Simulink
• Swift (Apple programming language)
• WebAssembly
• Zig

Required Dependencies

No response

What is the software tool's license?

None

Operating System Support

• Windows
• Mac OSX
• Linux
• iOS
• Android

User Interface

• Programmatic
• Command line
• Web based
• Graphical user
• Menu driven
• Form based
• Natural language

Parallel Computing Paradigm

• Multi-threaded computing
• Multi-core computing
• Distributed computing
• Cluster computing
• Massively parallel computing
• Grid computing
• Reconfigurable computing with field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA)
• General-purpose computing on graphics processing units
• Application-specific integrated circuits
• Vector processors

What is the highest temporal resolution supported by the tool?

Years

What is the typical temporal resolution supported by the tool?

Years

What is the largest temporal scope supported by the tool?

Years

What is the typical temporal scope supported by the tool?

Years

What is the highest spatial resolution supported by the tool?

Facility

What is the typical spatial resolution supported by the tool?

Facility

What is the largest spatial scope supported by the tool?

Facility

What is the typical spatial scope supported by the tool?

Facility

Input Data Format

NA

Input Data Description

No response

Output Data Format

CSV

Output Data Description

No response

Contact Details

PVWatts@nrel.gov

Interface, Integration, and Linkage

No response