TEC 260 Test 3: PV Performance Models, SAM, and Utility-Scale PV Projects

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering photovoltaic performance models, simulation software (SAM), utility-scale project development stages, financial metrics, and plant layout design.

Capital and operating costs

The up-front expenditure required to build a project, plus its ongoing operations and maintenance (O&M) costs.

Payback period

The number of years required for cumulative savings to repay the initial investment.

Avoided costs

The utility expenses that a PV system allows the system owner to avoid paying.

Internal rate of return (IRR)

A financial metric representing a project's effective annual rate of return.

Levelized cost of energy (LCOE)

The lifetime cost of building and operating a system per unit of energy produced, expressed in $\$/\text{kWh}$.

Cash flow

The movement of money into and out of a project across each year of its operational life.

Derate factors

Multipliers accounting for system losses (such as soiling, wiring, mismatch, and equipment aging) that reduce actual energy output below nameplate capacity.

RETScreen

A clean energy management software tool used for energy efficiency and renewable energy project feasibility analysis.

PVsyst

A comprehensive software package dedicated to solar PV design and detailed yield simulation.

Aurora Solar

A software platform focused on PV design and sales workflow.

HelioScope

A web-based software tool used primarily for commercial and utility-scale PV system design.

System Advisor Model (SAM)

A free performance and financial modeling software package developed by NREL for renewable energy systems.

Sighten

A software modeling platform built to support the solar sales workflow.

Energy Toolbase

A modeling platform specialized in utility rate and financial analysis for solar-plus-storage projects.

Direct costs (SAM)

Hardware and installation expenses that are tied directly to physical equipment, such as modules and inverters.

Indirect costs (SAM)

Project expenses not tied directly to physical equipment, including site assessment, permitting, engineering, and grid interconnection.

OpenEI U.S. Utility Rate Database

An integrated online database from which SAM users can directly download utility rate structures.

Nominal discount rate (SAM)

A financial rate that SAM automatically calculates from the user-entered inflation rate and real discount rate.

Market assessment (Stage 1)

The initial utility-scale PV project stage assessing utility cooperation, grid connectivity, available financial incentives, and state energy production mandates.

Feasibility study (Stage 2)

The second stage of project development evaluating environmental impacts and the quality of the available solar resource.

Site selection (Stage 3)

The third stage of project development analyzing transmission access points, shading, land use, zoning, topography, and soil conditions.

Determine system size (Stage 4)

The fourth project stage involving financial modeling, payback period estimation, financial gain forecasts, predicted energy yields, and emission offsets.

Technology assessment (Stage 5)

The fifth project stage determining the inverter selection, panel type, panel orientation, and racking/mounting systems.

Financing (Stage 6)

The utility-scale project stage securing government loan guarantees, state/federal grant programs, private investments, and Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs).

Commissioning (Stage 8)

The project stage involving municipal inspections, passing electrical and building codes, implementing an operations management plan, and hiring and training personnel.

Power purchase agreement (PPA)

A long-term contract governing the sale of electricity between a project developer and a buyer that stabilizes project revenue over its life cycle.

Crystalline silicon (c-Si)

The dominant photovoltaic material technology used in $80\text{--}90\%$ of utility-scale solar projects, available in monocrystalline and polycrystalline forms.

Thin film (CdTe)

Cadmium telluride PV technology that features lower upfront capital costs but significantly lower conversion efficiency and energy output than crystalline silicon.

Block design

A standardized plant layout strategy offering simple planning and cost-efficient construction at the expense of lower overall land area utilization.

Individual design

A customized plant layout strategy that provides high land area utilization and customer flexibility, but involves complex construction logistics.

Past layout optimization metric

Maximizing $\text{kWh/Wp}$ (yield per installed power) to achieve the goal of getting the most production out of each module.

Present layout optimization metric

Minimizing $\$/\text{Wp}$ (capital cost per installed power) to achieve the goal of installing solar generation as cheaply as possible.

Near-future layout optimization metric

Minimizing $\$/\text{kWh}$ (LCOE) to find the overall most economic and energy-efficient solution.

Exelon City Solar

A $10\,\text{MW}$ PV power plant utilizing $32{,}292$ tracking panels on a $41\text{-acre}$ brownfield in Chicago's West Pullman neighborhood; the largest urban solar facility in the U.S. at the time of construction.