make_SAM_files and SolarResource.get_SAM_df updates

[ppinchuk]

Added one new input parameter to the make_SAM_files and one new input parameter to the SolarResource.get_SAM_df function to facilitate the addition of user input to files. This was necessary for the processing of the 2020 TMY files for PVWatts (see email chain from Janine Keith starting on January 21, 2022).

The new input parameter to make_SAM_files is extra_meta_data, which is a dictionary mapping a meta column name to a meta column value. This allows users to add extra meta data to their output files.

The new input parameter to SolarResource.get_SAM_df is extra_cols, which pulls extra data from the SAM solar resource DataFrame. The key of the dictionary represents the name of the column to copy from the SAM solar resource DataFrame, and the value represents the name to give the data in the output.

Together, these new options could used likes this:

NSRDBX.make_SAM_files(
    ...
    write_time=True,
    extra_meta_data={"TMY Year": "2020"},
    extra_cols={"surface_albedo": "Surface Albedo"}
)

The output would then look something like this:

Location ID	Latitude	Longitude	Elevation	Time Zone	Country	State	County	Urban	Population	Landcover	TMY Year	Version
150658	40.13	-105.22	1615.5	-7	United States	Colorado	Boulder	None	363	140	2020	3.2.0
Year	Month	Day	Hour	Minute	DNI	DHI	Wind Speed	Temperature	Surface Albedo
2020	1	1	0	30	0	0	5.1	-14	0.87
2020	1	1	1	30	0	0	5.3	-13	0.87
2020	1	1	2	30	0	0	5.3	-13	0.87
2020	1	1	3	30	0	0	5.2	-13	0.87
2020	1	1	4	30	0	0	5.1	-13	0.87
...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...

Note the addition of TMY Year in the meta data and the Surface Albedo column in the time series data.

[grantbuster]

Nice, i like this. Always a good idea to add kwargs that can be endlessly expanded (instead of something like sufrace_albedo=True just to add the single new col).

[ppinchuk]

Totally agreed!

[grantbuster]

Interesting! I've never seen this. So it will go to the {} if extra_cols is bool(False)?

[ppinchuk]

Yup! I love using this pattern when I use an optional input with a default value of None in the function declaration. I feel it is an elegant way to get around the fact that you should never use mutables as default arguments.