Open Source Tools for PV Modeling

Solar power researchers and engineers are developing a growing number of open source software tools for energy modeling. This website aims to catalog these tools.

Please see the companion paper in the Proceedings of the WCPEC-7 (2018).

Also see the companion presentation at the 10th PVPMC Workshop and 2018 Systems Symposium, plus additional talks on open source PV software from DOE, NREL, and Sandia. Additionally, some national labs maintain their own software indexes: Sandia, NREL.

We welcome your contributions to this archive! To contribute or update information on a tool, please submit a pull request to the openpvtools GitHub repository.

Table of Open Source PV Tools. A * denotes that the project is under active development.

Name	Purpose	Years developed	Documentation Website	Development Website	Primary Language	License
PVLib Matlab	General purpose PV modeling	2012 – 2018	https://pvpmc.sandia.gov	https://github.com/sandialabs/MATLAB_PV_LIB	Matlab	BSD 3
pvlib python	General purpose PV modeling	2013 – *	https://pvlib-python.readthedocs.io	https://github.com/pvlib/pvlib-python	Python	BSD 3
System Advisor Model (SAM)	Desktop app for PV, wind, CSP modeling, financial	2004 – *	https://sam.nrel.gov	https://github.com/NREL/SAM	C++	Mixed MIT/GPL 3
ssc	Compute modules for SAM	2004 – *	https://sam.nrel.gov	https://github.com/nrel/ssc	C, C++	Mixed MIT/GPL 3
RdTools	Technical analysis of PV timeseries data	2016 – *	https://rdtools.readthedocs.io	https://github.com/NREL/rdtools	Python	MIT
PVFree	API for obtaining PV modeling parameters	2015 – *	https://pvfree.azurewebsites.net	https://github.com/BreakingBytes/pvfree	Python	BSD 2
SolarUtils	Python wrappers of C solar position and spectral decomposition	2016	https://sunpower.github.io/SolarUtils/	https://github.com/SunPower/SolarUtils	Python	BSD 3
Pecos	Performance monitoring	2016 – *	https://pecos.readthedocs.io	https://github.com/sandialabs/pecos	Python	BSD 3
Solpy	General purpose PV modeling	2011 – 2015	https://solpy.readthedocs.io	https://github.com/nrcharles/solpy	Python	LGPL 2.1
PVMismatch	IV curve calculator for mismatched cells	2012 – *	https://sunpower.github.io/PVMismatch/	https://github.com/SunPower/PVMismatch	Python	BSD 3
photovoltaic	General purpose PV modeling	2017 – *	https://github.com/pvedu/photovoltaic	https://github.com/pvedu/photovoltaic	Python	GPL 3
feedinlib	PV timeseries modeling	2015 – *	https://feedinlib.readthedocs.io	https://github.com/oemof/feedinlib	Python	GPL 3
CASSYS	PV system modeling	2015 – *	https://github.com/CanadianSolar/CASSYS	https://github.com/CanadianSolar/CASSYS	Excel, C#	BSD 3
Bifacial PV View Factor model	Bifacial modeling	2017 – *	https://bifacialvf.readthedocs.io	https://github.com/NREL/bifacialvf	Python	BSD 3
solaR	General purpose PV modeling	2010 – *	https://jstatsoft.org/article/view/v050i09	https://github.com/oscarperpinan/solar	R	GPL 3
pvfactors	Diffuse shading and bifacial irradiance modeling	2016 – *	https://sunpower.github.io/pvfactors/	https://github.com/SunPower/pvfactors	Python	BSD 3
pvcaptest	Capacity testing per ASTM E2848	2017 – *	https://pvcaptest.readthedocs.io/	https://github.com/pvcaptest/pvcaptest	Python	MIT
SolarData	Accessing public solar datasets	2018 – 2021	https://github.com/dazhiyang/SolarData	https://github.com/dazhiyang/SolarData	R	GPL 2
SolCore	modelling solar cells and semiconductor materials	2017 – *	https://www.solcore.solar	https://github.com/qpv-research-group/solcore5	Python	LGPL 3
PVplr	analysis of Performance Loss Rates	2020 – *	https://doi.org/10.1109/PVSC45281.2020.9300807	https://cran.r-project.org/package=PVplr	R	BSD 3
PVAnalytics	PV data QA and analysis	2020 – *	https://pvanalytics.readthedocs.io	https://github.com/pvlib/pvanalytics	Python	MIT
twoaxistracking	Two-axis tracker shading	2021 – *	https://twoaxistracking.readthedocs.io	https://github.com/pvlib/twoaxistracking	Python	BSD 3
pvOps	Fusion of text-based data with PV production data	2021 – *	https://pvops.readthedocs.io	https://github.com/sandialabs/pvOps	Python	BSD 3
cpvlib	Simulation of concentrator photovoltaic energy systems	2020 – *	https://cpvlib.readthedocs.io	https://github.com/isi-ies-group/cpvlib	Python	BSD 3

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