Working with your Evaluate projects

You will get familiar with the Evaluate project structure and how to work with it.

Overview is the default page when you open a project. It consists of a dataset/energy system selector to choose the data you want to display for evaluation, the project's general info, and its analysis overview.

Energy system selector

The energy system selector section lets you choose an energy system or dataset you wish to evaluate.

1. Energy system selector - the analysis section will show data based on the selected energy system or dataset. Depending on your project activation stage, you may select between automatically generated Time Series and TMY P50 data or created GTI/PV energy systems. Energy systems are created using the energy system designer.

2. Energy system/dataset type indicator.

3. Simulation data type indicator - helps you to identify the data used for the simulation of the selected energy system/dataset.

4. Selected energy system status - indicates the status of the energy system simulation. Non-calculated systems have a simulation icon next to them to start their simulation, and calculated systems are accompanied by a chart icon to access their analysis data.

5. Energy system options menu - additional options provided for the selected energy system.

The project info & location

Project info and Location tabs show you basic information about your project, such as its name, current stage, date created, or time zone. You can open their additional details by clicking the respective links.

Project analysis overview

Here, you can take a sneak peek at the data analysis for the selected energy system. Every tab is related to a separate analysis section based on the data type: Solar resource, meteorological conditions (Climate), environmental conditions, PV statistics, or theoretical PV electricity potential.

Availability of individual overview tabs depend on the dataset/energy system selected, e.g., PV statistics is shown for PV energy systems only.

The Project menu category provides access to additional project information.

Project info

Apart from General info tab where you will see basic information, you can review the apps and subscriptions your project is linked to. The “More details” links will get you deeper into the respective subject to see more details and edit some of its parameters.

Location

This page provides detailed information about the location, the site horizon and sunpath, day length, and solar zenith angle during the year.

Energy system

You will create and edit your energy systems here. The page offers an overview of the primary energy system, its design preview, and the alternative energy systems table.

1. Create an energy system - click to start creating new GTI or PV energy system.

2. Primary energy system indicator - the energy system has been marked as primary.

3. Energy system status. It can be calculated, not calculated, or not configured.

4. Energy system options - use to open its data analysis (simulated systems only), simulate the system (non-simulated systems), edit the energy system, duplicate it, or generate a report. Use the icon to view the PV system’s summary.

5. Customize the table by selecting the columns to display.

The Analysis section is the most critical component of the project, as it synthesizes essential data regarding solar, meteorological, environmental, and photovoltaic system analyses. This comprehensive information is vital for understanding the performance of simulated energy systems or specific locations.

• Solar resource - This section displays data on solar irradiance levels, including daily and seasonal variations, which are crucial for assessing the potential solar energy generation at a specific location.

• Climate - This section provides information about meteorological conditions such as temperature, humidity, wind speed, and precipitation patterns, helping to evaluate how these factors influence solar energy production and system performance.

• Environment- This section outlines local environmental factors such as albedo or precipitable water, giving further details about the location.

• PV statistics - This section presents performance metrics of photovoltaic systems, including energy output, system losses, and long-term degradation, allowing for a comprehensive assessment of the system's effectiveness. It is available for PV systems only.

The energy system selector lets you select between available energy systems or calculated datasets, allowing you to compare data and evaluate the differences for various energy systems.

The Download section is dedicated to downloading reports and generating data export from your projects.

Reports

You can generate several types of reports, each tailored with a different purpose in mind. Depending on the selected simulated data, you can create the following reports:

• Site assessment of solar resource and climate conditions.

• Full evaluation of photovoltaic energy project.

• Review of solar resource and climate conditions.

• Review of photovoltaic energy project.

The availability of each report type is subject to the data type/energy system selected by the energy system selector.  

Data exports

Evaluate offers export of the project data to be used in a third-party application.

You can download solar and meteo data or energy system data based on availability.

Depending on the selected data export, they may be available in formats such as Solargis JSON, Solargis CSV, NREL SAM weather file, PVsyst standard format, and Helioscope weather file.