A Comparative Evaluation of Photovoltaic Electricity Production Assessment Software (PVGIS, PVWatts and RETScreen)

The production and installation of PV systems is now one of the world’s fastest growing industries. This paper presents the primary differences in the usage and results of three major free software packages, Photovoltaic Geographical Information System (PVGIS), PVWatts and RETScreen, used for quick...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEnvironmental processes Vol. 2; no. Suppl 1; pp. 175 - 189
Main Authors Psomopoulos, Constantinos S., Ioannidis, George Ch, Kaminaris, Stavros D., Mardikis, Kostas D., Katsikas, Nikolaos G.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cham Springer International Publishing 01.11.2015
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Arrays
Computer programs
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Electric power generation
Electricity
Environmental Management
Environmental Science and Engineering
Geographic information systems
Installation
Mathematical analysis
Photovoltaic cells
Photovoltaics
Review Article
Software
Software packages
Waste Management/Waste Technology
Water Quality/Water Pollution
Simulation
Methodology
Photovoltaic software
Roof-integrated systems
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Summary:The production and installation of PV systems is now one of the world’s fastest growing industries. This paper presents the primary differences in the usage and results of three major free software packages, Photovoltaic Geographical Information System (PVGIS), PVWatts and RETScreen, used for quick estimations and calculations relevant to photovoltaic (PV) electricity production. This work spots the differences between these three software packages when used to estimate the ins and outs of variously sized theoretical PV arrays. Real measurements of existing PV parks installed in Greece (i.e., a real roof integrated PV array of 9.6 kWp, a PV plant of approximately 105.6 kWp, and a 98.4 kWp installation featuring a 2-axis tracking mechanism), provided data compiled over 24 months and allowed the assessment of the theoretical calculation results of the major software.
ISSN:2198-7491
2198-7505
DOI:10.1007/s40710-015-0092-4