Welcome to bifacial_radiance’s documentation!#
bifacial_radiance is a NREL supported tool that provides a set of functions and classes for simulating the performance of bifacial PV systems. More information on bifacial_radiance can be found at the Wiki page.
The intended audience ranges from PV performance researchers, Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) companies, installers, investors, consumers and analysts of the PV industry interested in predicting and evaluating bifacial photovoltaic systems.
The source code for bifacial_radiance is hosted on github.
Please see the Installation page for installation help.
For examples on how to use bifacial_radiance, please see our Webinar tutorial video. Also find more information on Package Overview and our Jupyter Notebook tutorials. The documentation assumes general familiarity with Python, NumPy, and Pandas. Google searches will yield many excellent tutorials for these packages.
The bifacial_radiance GitHub wiki has a Projects and publications that use bifacial_radiance page for inspiration and listing of your application.
There is a variable naming convention to ensure consistency throughout the library
Citing bifacial_radiance#
Many of the contributors to bifacial_radiance work in institutions where citation metrics are used in performance or career evaluations. If you use bifacial_radiance in a published work, please cite:
Ayala Pelaez and Deline, (2020). bifacial_radiance: a python package for modeling bifacial solar photovoltaic systems. Journal of Open Source Software, 5(50), 1865, https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.01865
Please also cite the DOI corresponding to the specific version of bifacial_radiance that you used. bifacial_radiance DOIs are listed at Zenodo.org
Additional bifacial_radiance publications with validation of the software include:
Deline, Chris, and Ayala, Silvana. Bifacial_Radiance. Computer Software. https://github.com/NREL/bifacial_radiance. USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Solar Energy Technologies Office (EE-4S). 17 Dec. 2017. Web. doi:10.11578/dc.20180530.16. https://www.osti.gov/doecode/biblio/6869
Ayala Pelaez S, Deline C, Greenberg P, Stein JS, Kostuk RK. Model and validation of single-axis tracking with bifacial PV. IEEE J Photovoltaics. 2019;9(3):715-721. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8644027 and https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy19osti/72039.pdf (pre-print, conference version)
Ayala Pelaez, Deline C, MacAlpine M, Marion B, Stein J, Kostuk K. Comparison of Bifacial Solar Irradiance Model Predictions with Field Validation. IEEE J Photovoltaics. 2019; 9(1):82-87. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8534404
Contents#
- User Guide
- Examples
- Introductory Examples
- 1 - Introductory Example: Fixed-Tilt simple setup
- 2 - Introductory Example - 1-Axis tracker with cumulative sky
- 1. Create a folder for your simulation, and load bifacial_radiance
- 2. Create a Radiance Object, Set Albedo, and Download and Load Weather File
- TRACKING Workflow
- 3. Set Tracking Angles
- 4. Generate the Sky
- 5. Define the Module type
- 6. Make the Scene
- 7. Combine Ground, Sky and Scene Objects
- 8. Analyze and get results
- 9. Clean Results
- CONDENSED VERSION
- Medium Level Examples
- 3 - Medium Level Example - 1-Axis tracker by hour (gendaylit)
- 1. Load bifacial_radiance
- 2. Define all your system variables
- 3. Create Radiance Object, Set Albedo and Weather
- 4. Make Module: Cell Level Module Example
- 5. Calculate GCR
- 6. Set Tracking Angles
- 7. Generate the Sky
- 8. Make Scene 1axis
- 9. Make Oct and Analyze
- 4 - Medium Level Example - Debugging your Scene with Custom Objects
- 5 - Medium Level Example - Modeling Carports and Canopies + Sampling accross a Module!
- 13 - Medium Level Example - Modeling Modules with Glass
- Advanced Topcs
- 6 - Advanced topics: Understanding trackerdict structure
- 7 - Advanced topics - Multiple SceneObjects Example
- 8 - Advanced topics - Calculating Power Output and Electrical Mismatch
- 9 - Advanced topics - 1 axis torque tube Shading for 1 day (Research Documentation)
- 14 - Advanced topics - Cement Pavers albedo example
- RESULTS ANALYSIS NOON
- RESULT ANALYSIS DAY
- AgriPV
- 11 - Advanced Level Example - Modeling an Agriculture+PV (AGRIPV) Site
- 12 - Advanced topics - AgriPV Clearance Height Evaluation
- 16 - AgriPV - 3-up and 4-up collector optimization
- 17 - AgriPV - Jack Solar Site Modeling
- 1. Load Bifacial Radiance and other essential packages
- 2. Define all the system variables
- 18 - AgriPV: Designing for adecuate crop shading
- 5. Raytrace with Tree Geometry
- Other
- 15 - NEW FUNCTIONALITIES EXAMPLES
- 19 - Example Simluation: East West Sheds
- 20 - Example Simulation - I Beams
- Adding the I-Beams
- 21 - Example Simulation - Modeling Performance, an End to End Simulation
- 22 - Example Simulation: Mirrors and Modules
- Variety of Routines
- Fixed tilt routine for fixed tilt systems
- Introductory Examples
- API reference
- What’s New
- v0.4.1 (03 / 09 / 2022)
- v0.4.0 (02 / 03 / 2022)
- v0.3.4 (05 / 26 / 2020)
- v0.3.3.2 (04 / 16 / 2020)
- v0.3.3.1 (10 / 16 / 2019)
- v0.3.3 (10 / 14 / 2019)
- v0.3.0 (05 / 14 / 2019)
- v0.2.4 (02 / 27 / 2019)
- v0.2.3 (11 / 14 / 2018)
- v0.2.2 (08 / 29 / 2018)
- v0.2.1 (05 / 21 / 2018)
- v0.2.0 (03 / 21 / 2018)
- v0.1.1 (03 / 08 / 2018)
- v0.1.0 (12 / 18 / 2017)
- v0.0.5 (12 / 13 / 2017)
- v0.0.4 (12 / 13 / 2017)
- v0.0.3 (12 / 13 / 2017)
- v0.0.2 (06 / 29/ 2017)
- v0.0.1 (05 / 24 / 2017)
- Validation