[Plugin] Skelion (solar, shadows)

[kmullin]

PVSYST exporter is not yest in manual but you can export pressing pvsyst icon:

pvsyst_icon.JPG

.
Buildings does not project shadows over solar panels. They are working to fix that. But size and position of solar panels are right.

Has any progress been made on buildings and other objects being able to project shadows?

[taranraj123]

Hey @Juantxo has there been any update on the PVsyst shadows issue?

I'm trying to create a Helios 3D file from Sketchup using the Skelion toolbar. The tool works great but as you mentioned none of the obstructions are imported as shadow producing objects. Is there a timeline on when there will be a fix for this?

Thanks!!

[Juantxo]

I don't know. You should ask PVSYST team.

[Smexystef]

Where can we see the update logs? version history?

Also, there's a very irritating graphical glitch if you move solar panels manually, both in sketchup as in exported/printed projects, as seen here:

can you fix this?

[Juantxo]

Go to plugins foder and there skelion folder. Read change.log to see the changes.

About the image, is not a glitch. If you have 2 faces coplanar, SketchUp shows both textures.
Give some depth to your panels and then the face of the panel won't be coplanar to roof face.

[emerkel]

Curious if there is any functionality on non-planar surfaces to set criteria for slope. In other words, when placing on a non-planar surface, it will not place components that would cause the component's slope to be greater than some value either in the direction of sheds or in the lateral direction. If not is there any plans for this function? It would be extremely handy for larger scale ground mount systems.

[Juantxo]

I not sure what are you talking... You can set tilt and azimuth of the components. You can choose also 3 different ways to insert the components in non-planar.
Please, watch the video tutorials at www.youtube.com/skelion

[emerkel]

Yes, the pitch of the component (modules themselves) are entered in the Skelion prompt. What I'm referring to is the slope of the terrain the components are being placed on, for example placing a table on a hill that slopes 10 degrees to the south. Realistically, racking systems can only be installed on terrain that is within a certain criteria of slope. This isn't a huge issue for simple terrain but for more complex terrain, a particular mesh may slope in the direction of the azimuth and in the lateral direction (side to side). There are practical limits on both of these, generally about 20 degrees in the direction of the azimuth (following the sheds) and about 5-10 degrees side to side. This all depends on the racking mfg but I'm curious if there's any functionality to set criteria for this in Skelion or if there are any plans to add it. I've also emailed the question to j.pons at skelion.

[Froedem]

Hi,

I'm using skelion for a while now (without any issues) but have been suffering some problems with my regular shadow analysis in sketchup that might be caused by the skelion plugin. In most cases my objects disappear for certain periods a day (while using the shadow slider). This differs a bit from the orientation of the object but it's rather severe. Is this a known bug of the skelion or sketchup 2015 software? Also I would like to know whether this can cause accuracy issues with my skelion shawdow derating calculations?

Cheers

[Juantxo]

Obects disappear: Not skelion related, is camera clipping. Change from parallel view to perspective view and problem is solved.
Read about here:
http://help.sketchup.com/en/article/36261

Camera clipping problem does not affect shading derate calculations

[Froedem]

Tried all that already but it has nothing to do with zooming or anything. It's just when I use the shadow function everything just disappears during a certain time of the day. The rest of the day everything visualizes just fine including the shadows. The exact interval of this error depends on the camera position and day of the year.

Hope anyone can help!

[Juantxo]

Problem is not related with Skelion. Update to SketchUp 2015 last release.
And use perspective view.

[Froedem]

Something else, could you let me know how the shadow derating calculations of a face are determined? Is this based on a single string for the face (so that the worst performing module at a given time sets the minimum for the others) or is this based on a design with optimisers (performance of modules is independent of each other)? In any case it would be useful to have this option included in the software in order to come to an optimal system design or to calculate both shadow deratings. Besides that it would even be better to be able to select modules to be included for each independent MPPT string.

Cheers

[HANERGY]

Hi Guys!
I'm a beginner user of Sketchup (Pro 2015, version 15.3.331 64 bit) and I'm trying to design a PV-system in a flat roof with several chimneys. Is there any way to create the shading area and then automatically avoid those while filling in the available surfaces?

I hope someone can help me!
Many thanks!

[juju]

Hi Guys!
I'm a beginner user of Sketchup (Pro 2015, version 15.3.331 64 bit) and I'm trying to design a PV-system in a flat roof with several chimneys. Is there any way to create the shading area and then automatically avoid those while filling in the available surfaces?

I hope someone can help me!
Many thanks!

http://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/skelion

http://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/skelion-pro

http://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/archelios-pro

http://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/lss-chronolux

http://extensions.sketchup.com/en/conte ... w-analysis

http://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/sunhours

[HANERGY]

Thanks Juju!
Sorry but I haven't been very precise earlier...
I'm already using Skelion but I can't find out how to create the shading area and leave it empty when using the automatic option "insert solar component" also I believe this is not an option on the trial version, right?

Many thanks

[emerkel]

The "Sunny Area" (moon icon) tool doesn't seem to work on meshes (non-planar) surfaces. I am doing something wrong does it not support meshes? If the latter are there any plans to make this available? Thanks!

[Sminky]

Hi, I have been happily using skelion and pvsyst for some time and it's a powerful couple.
In the version log of the latest version of pvsyst, it finally says that it's now able to import shading objects from helios. So now I was wondering, is it possible to make it work for skelion?
Thanks for your time.

[juju]

Hi, I have been happily using skelion and pvsyst for some time and it's a powerful couple.
In the version log of the latest version of pvsyst, it finally says that it's now able to import shading objects from helios. So now I was wondering, is it possible to make it work for skelion?
Thanks for your time.

link for "pvsyst"?

[Sminky]

Sorry, what do you mean by link for pvsyst?

In skelion is already present an export tool for pvsyst but the exported objects that are not solar modules were not counted by pvsyst for the shadings.
The last version log of pvsyst says that it now should be possible to read these shading objects but when I tried doing it with skelion, it didn't work. So, maybe, there is a little work to do on skelion side to make it happen. I don't know if this work with other software so I am not sure it's skelion fault, that's why I was asking if it's possible.

This is the link to the change log I was talking about
http://www.pvsyst.com/en/software/software-development

Best regards

[Juantxo]

Last version of Skelion has been released, with a nice solar tracking feature, for one and two axis solar trackers:

[AirWindSolar]

OK, testing with the free version again.

Still having the problem of it hanging when I have it insert modules more than once in a model. (We often have multiple revisions and/or add a surface, fill it, then draw out another surface if needed for the desired size, so inserting multiple times is a necessity for me.
We use a railless racking system that allows pretty much any mix of orientations. Often this means we'll have a combination of portrait and landscape rows to best fill the available space. It would be great to have something that can effectively tessellate the available space as efficiently as possible using both orientations and accounting for a minimum amount of solar access for each module. (i.e. generally no shade at all between 0900-1600 year round, though this changes for some arrays)
Get rid of that damn monolog box that I have to acknowledge at every startup until I install the latest version. It's not going to be my priority when I'm swamped with design jobs and is pretty much the reason I've uninstalled Skelion twice instead of buying the Pro version. I'm not inclined to pay for childish "PAY ATTENTION TO ME!" tactics over a non-critical update. Use something like that if it's about to format my backup drive, not because I might be missing out on a spelling correction somewhere.

[AirWindSolar]

A corollary to the "no shade 0900-1600 year 'round" would be that I generally end up tracing that out by hand. The ability to do "sunny area" for a user defined list of dates/times throughout the year would be very helpful and well worth the purchase price for me. The list I would most likely use would be 26 iterations, but it generally ends up running only for a chimney (i.e. a simple box) or two casting shadows on a single plane, so even running 30 iterations of the current script takes less than 5 minutes for me.

[Juantxo]

Recommended iterations are 1-3, as you can read just on the left of the text box.
Nobody needs 30 iterations so use 1,2 or 3 iterations. Remember to check join shadows radio button also.

Any error you can reproduce please email to support@skelion.com telling the steps to reproduce the error, Skelion version, SketchUp version and OS version.

About Skelion 519 versus 518, there are a lot of changes and it is the work of several months. If the message appears it is because update is critical. Also I recommend you to update SketchUp each year.

In the above post you can see the new solar tracking feature, only one of the changes that have skelion 519.

Best regards

[LeandroSouza]

Hello!I am new around. Can we somehow use some skelion function to place PV panels automatically away from shades? Or do we have to do it manually instead? Cheers!

[LeandroSouza]

Hello! Can I somehow see my PV panel losses (or not gain) due to orientation (some rooftops have angles that are not that simple to analyse)? E.g.: I want to fullfill a rooftop with 50 panels and checkout which are the ten among them that have the best yield. Thank you!

[Juantxo]

Watch insert solar panels video and and SOF plots video please.

http://skelion.com/en/training.htm?v1.0.1

Best regards

[sam24sk]

Hi All,

Currently trialling Skelion however I'm having some trouble working out the shading losses calculation within the 'basic report' of Skelion. The report shows 'general total' shading losses of 0.7% which appear to be calculated from the average of the shading losses from each module from the array, which seems to make sense. However, the basic report also shows a list of monthly average shading losses ranging from 0.13%-5.49% which would then work out to annual average of 1.6%, which clearly doesn't correspond to the 'general total' figure.

I am struggling to understand the relationship between the two data, and therefore unable to justify the results in the analysis for my client. Is there a way to find out how these figures are calculated in the software? Are the 'general total' calculation losses taken using total annual daylight or using daylight from a single day of the year? I am also wondering whether the 'general total' losses calculation takes account of varying daylight hours as the year progresses, but perhaps the monthly calculation does not? I'm probably barking up the wrong tree and there is a simpler answer to be found here. Can anybody please explain the difference?

Any help much appreciated. Thanks

Sam,
UK

Shading losses.png

[silvi_nmss]

Hi...
Can I enter meteorological data manually in skelion?? I use the data from NASA for my location (Indonesia)
Thanks.

[Juantxo]

You can enter any file with NREL TMY3 format.
In future versions we will add a tool to create synthetic hourly values from monthly values.
Meteo data is only used to calculate shading losses (radiation that arrives to the panel taking into account shadows).
Yield is calculated with PVWATTS and PVGIS and meteo data used to calculate shading losses in skelion is not related.