archiSolarPark

Overview

What it does

archiSolarPark is a feasibility tool for the first hour of a solar project. Draw the plot, and the object fills it the way a ground-mounted park is usually built. Change the module, the mounting, the roads or the battery and the whole layout redraws, with the numbers in the info block.

• Three mountings: fixed tables facing the equator, single-axis trackers, or east-west tables back to back.
• Linked to the project: it reads the latitude, longitude and north of your Archicad project. From those it sets the tilt, spaces the rows so they don't shade each other, and turns them to the sun.
• What a real park needs: a buffer and fence, a gate, a ring road, internal roads, inverter stations, a substation and a battery in containers.
• Plan and 3D: tables on posts, trackers following Archicad's sun, the fence, the roads and the equipment, with a plan drawing that is ready to present.

The energy figure is a ballpark from the sun's path and the sunshine hours of the place. For a bankable figure, type in a yield from PVGIS or your simulation software and the object does the rest.

Getting started

Quick start

1. Load the library. In Archicad, open File › Libraries and Objects › Library Manager and add ArchiTools_Library_AC29.lcf (or _AC28). You can use the single archiSolarPark_AC29.gsm instead, but not both: they are the same object.
2. Check the project location. The object uses the latitude, longitude and north of the project. Set the project's location to the real site first, or type a location in the object's settings (Location & Energy).
3. Place it. In the Object tool, search for archiSolarPark (ArchiTools Library › Solar Design) and click once in the plan. It starts as a 6-corner plot of about 6.9 ha.
4. Fit it to your plot. Drag the corners onto the plot's boundary. To remove a corner, drop it on its neighbour. To add corners, raise Corners on Site & Roads: the longest edges are split.
5. Set the sunshine hours. On Location & Energy, type the sunshine hours a year of the place, from a climate table. The default is 2,000.
6. Read the result. The info block under the plot gives modules, MWp DC and MW AC, MWh a year, homes supplied and CO2 saved. Change the mounting, the module or the roads and read it again.

Anatomy

How the park is laid out

Working in from the boundary, every line is an offset of the plot, so the park follows any shape of 3 to 24 corners:

• Buffer and fence: the fence stands Fence in from the boundary inside the plot (5 m) and is open at the gate, which you can slide along its edge.
• Ring road: 4 m wide, just inside the fence, with a drive from the boundary through the gate.
• Clearance: 1 m between any road and the modules.
• Panel area: filled with rows of tables. A row is kept wherever its whole depth fits. Tables have a fixed length and sit centred in each free stretch, with a gap between them.
• Internal roads cross the rows, spaced evenly so that no block of tables is longer than Blocks at most (120 m). Each has room on one side for inverter stations.
• Compound: a fenced yard with the substation and the battery. It sits at the gate inside the ring road, or anywhere you drag it, and keeps a drive around it.

Mountings

Fixed tilt, trackers or east-west

Pick the mounting on the first settings page. Picking one also sets its usual table and spacing, so each choice starts from a realistic layout.

The same plot, three ways

Fixed tilt, facing the equator

Tables face south in the northern hemisphere and north in the southern. The tilt is the optimum for the latitude, or your own. Lowest module edge sets the height of the front edge (0.8 m). In 3D the tables stand on front and back posts with two rails under the modules.

Single-axis trackers

The axes run north-south and the tables turn east in the morning and west in the afternoon, up to Tracker: max (55°). With Backtracking on, the trackers turn back towards flat when the sun is low, so one row never shades the next. They give the most energy per installed kWp but need more land.

In 3D the tables sit on a torque tube at axis height (2 m). In 3D chooses what they show:

• Follow Archicad's sun: the trackers turn to the sun set in Archicad. After changing the sun, rebuild the 3D (Ctrl+Shift+F5). Near 9:00 they lean east, near noon they lie almost flat, near 15:00 they lean west, and at night they lie flat.
• Flat (stow), or a custom angle: positive turns east, negative west.

The energy estimate always follows the trackers through the whole year, whatever the 3D shows.

East-west

Two module sides lean back to back at a low tilt (10°), the ridges running north-south, with a walkway between the tents (0.8 m). This packs the most modules onto a plot and spreads the production over the day, at a lower yield per kWp.

Orientation

Orientation and row spacing

Row direction

The ideal direction comes from the project's north: fixed modules face the equator, and tracker and east-west axes run north-south. Plots rarely line up with the compass, so Row direction offers four choices:

• Best fit (most energy), the default. It tries the ideal direction and the directions of the plot's longest edges that are within Turn at most (15°) of it, each with 8 shifts of the rows. It keeps the layout that gives the most energy, which is the number of tables times the yield of that direction. Rows are turned towards an edge only when the extra tables pay for the sun they lose.
• Ideal: exactly south (or north-south for trackers), whatever the plot.
• Along an edge: the rows follow the edge you pick.
• Custom azimuth: the direction the fixed modules face, or the azimuth of the tracker axis.

Row spacing (pitch)

For fixed tilt, the default pitch keeps the rows free of shading for one hour either side of solar noon on the winter solstice: the sun's shadow from the top of one row just reaches the foot of the next. Widen the window with Shade-free hours, or check another date.

Instead of the shade-free rule you can set a ground cover ratio (module slope length divided by pitch; trackers default to 0.35) or a custom pitch. Whatever the spacing, the row shading that remains is taken off the energy and shown as row shading in the info block. East-west tents are spaced by the tent plus the walkway.

Row shift moves the rows across the plot. Best fit tries 8 shifts and keeps the one with the most tables; set it to Custom to place the first row yourself.

Energy

The energy estimate

The object follows the sun through 12 representative days and 24 hours each, at the project's location. For every hour it works out:

• How sunny it is: a clear sky, weighted by the place's Sunshine hours a year. Sunny hours get the direct beam, the rest an overcast sky.
• The light on the modules: the direct beam on their plane, less the part of the module shaded by the next row; the diffuse sky; and the light reflected by the ground (albedo 0.2). Trackers turn to the sun hour by hour, with backtracking.
• What reaches the grid: the yearly sum on the modules times the Performance ratio (0.82, which covers temperature, cables, inverters and soiling), plus any Bifacial gain.

Checked against seven climates, the sunlight on the ground comes within about 6% of published values. Dusty and humid tropical skies come out a little high. Use it to compare options and to size a project, not to sign a contract.

Sunshine hours are listed in most climate tables (national weather services, the climate box of a city's encyclopedia page). If you have a simulation result instead, set Yearly energy to Custom and type the kWh per kWp; the shading estimate is then left out.

Electrical

Inverters, compound and battery

• AC power is the DC power divided by the DC/AC ratio (1.25).
• Inverter stations are 20 ft skids of Stations of (MW AC) each (4 MW). The object places as many as the AC power needs beside the internal roads, spread evenly. Without internal roads they are counted but not placed; the info block then says how many of them it could place.
• The compound holds the substation yard (30 × 20 m: a control building and the transformer) and the battery block. It is turned with the gate's edge. Drag it anywhere in the plan; tables keep clear of it and of a drive around it.
• The battery comes in 20 ft containers of 5 MWh each. Size it By the PV power (default: 50% of the AC power for 2 hours), or type a Custom capacity. The battery block takes room from the modules, which changes the AC power and so the battery. The object repeats the layout until the container count settles.

Results

Reading the info block

The info block sits under the plot when you place the object; drag it anywhere and it stays put when the corners move. The same figures appear at the foot of each settings page. For the example plot it reads:

Beside the block, an arrow shows which way the fixed modules face; for trackers and east-west it shows the two directions they turn or lean.

Worked examples

Scenarios

Each example starts from the default object on the example plot (6.92 ha at 42.7°N, 21.2°E, 2,000 sunshine hours) and lists only the settings to change. The results are what the object computes for that plot.

Example

A first look at a plot

How much park fits, and what would it produce?

Page	Setting	Value
Site & Roads	Corners	as many as the plot has; then drag them onto it
Location & Energy	Sunshine hours a year	from a climate table for the place

• result 8,820 modules
• 5.20 MWp
• 6,371 MWh a year
• 1,224 kWh/kWp
• 2 inverter stations
• battery 4.2 MWh

Example

More energy per kWp with trackers

Single-axis trackers produce more from each module, on more land.

Page	Setting	Value
Modules & Mounting	Mounting	Single-axis trackers (north-south): sets 1P × 28, ground cover ratio 0.35
Rows	Ground cover ratio	0.35, or 0.40 for a denser field
Modules & Mounting	In 3D	Follow Archicad's sun, then set Archicad's sun and rebuild the 3D

• at 0.35 3.42 MWp, 4,597 MWh, 1,344 kWh/kWp
• at 0.40 3.92 MWp, 5,210 MWh, 1,331 kWh/kWp

Example

The most MWp on a tight plot: east-west

Pack the plot when power counts more than the yield per kWp, or when the grid wants a flatter daily curve.

Page	Setting	Value
Modules & Mounting	Mounting	East-west (back to back): sets 1L × 14 per side
Modules & Mounting	East-west tilt	10° (5–15° is usual)
Rows	East-west walkway	0.8 m between tents

• result 12,880 modules
• 7.60 MWp
• 8,316 MWh a year
• 1,094 kWh/kWp
• 1.10 MWp/ha

Example

A plot that doesn't face south

Decide whether the rows should follow the plot or the sun.

Page	Setting	Value
Rows	Row direction	Best fit (default): turns up to Turn at most
Rows	Turn at most	15° (raise it to let the rows follow steeper edges)
Rows	Row direction	Along an edge, or Ideal, to compare

• ideal, due south 4.94 MWp, 6,049 MWh
• best fit, turned 3° 5.20 MWp, 6,371 MWh
• along edge 1, 4.5° 5.12 MWp, 6,269 MWh

Example

A site in the southern hemisphere

Nothing to switch: below the equator the modules face north and the spacing is checked on 21 June.

Page	Setting	Value
Location & Energy	Location	the project's location, or Custom: −33.87, 151.21 (Sydney)
Location & Energy	Sunshine hours a year	2,600

• result facing 356°
• tilt 28.7°
• 6.53 MWp
• 10,021 MWh a year
• 1,536 kWh/kWp

Example

A bigger battery, somewhere else

Shift more of the day's energy into the evening and put the compound where the grid connection is.

Page	Setting	Value
Power & Battery	Power, % of the AC power	100
Power & Battery	Hours at full power	4
Plan	Compound	drag its centre hotspot; the position becomes Custom

• result 4.2 MW / 16.7 MWh
• 4 containers of 5 MWh
• the PV layout makes room for the larger block

Example

A 60 ha utility park

Blocks, roads and inverter stations for a large field.

Page	Setting	Value
Site & Roads	Blocks at most	150 m between internal roads
Power & Battery	Stations of (MW AC)	4.0, or the rating of the station you plan
Display & 3D	Posts and rails	off while you work in 3D, on for the final views

• result 59.96 ha
• 85,596 modules
• 50.5 MWp DC / 40.4 MW AC
• 61,845 MWh a year
• 11 inverter stations
• battery 20.2 MW / 40.4 MWh in 9 containers

Example

Use a PVGIS or simulation yield

Keep the layout and use a figure you trust for the energy.

Page	Setting	Value
Location & Energy	Yearly energy	Custom (e.g. PVGIS)
Location & Energy	Custom kWh per kWp	the specific yield from PVGIS, here 1,350

• result 7,025 MWh a year
• the best fit now simply takes the layout with the most tables, since every direction yields the same

Example

Denser or looser rows

Trade land against shading for fixed tables.

Page	Setting	Value
Rows	Row spacing	Ground cover ratio 0.50 for denser rows
Rows	Shade-free hours ± noon	2 for looser rows

• GCR 0.50 5.48 MWp, 6,700 MWh, shading 0.8%
• shade-free ±2 h 4.87 MWp, 5,976 MWh, shading 0.4%

Tip

Presentation drawings

A clean site plan for a client or an authority.

Page	Setting	Value
Display & 3D	Module joints	off at 1:1000 and smaller, on for close-ups
Display & 3D	Info block	on, dragged into the drawing's margin
Appearance	Pens, fills, surfaces	tick a box to use your own; unticked, the object picks the project pen closest to its colour
Appearance	Font, text size	to match your title block (2 mm by default)

• also the 3D roads, fence and equipment each have their own switch

Plan editing

Editing in the plan

• Corners: drag any corner. While you drag, the layout follows the hotspot. Drop a corner on one of its neighbours to remove it. Add corners with Corners on Site & Roads.
• Gate: slide it along its edge. Choose another edge in the settings; the compound follows the gate while its position is At the gate.
• Compound: drag its centre anywhere. Its position becomes Custom; set it back to At the gate to return it.
• Info block: drag it anywhere. It keeps its place when the corners move.

A corner, the gate or the compound dropped by hand keeps the value it was dropped at, and everything else redraws around it.