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