This application is learning tool for homeowners and other property owners to educate themselves on the economics of solar photovoltaic arrays. The purpose of the application is to provide a simple, yet informative application to determine the electricity output from a solar photovoltaic array, as well as basic ROI calculations, and a list of potential incentives and rebates. The application is targeted at residential and small commerical systems with a maximum rated capacity of <= 0.5mW (500,000 kw).
Solar PV Educator (final name TBD) provides a UI for property owners to model different sizes and configurations of their PV system, as well as find local, state and federal incentives programs to lessen the upfront cost of their system. The application will provide monthly and yearly average electricity production amounts, localized by zip code, as well as estimated up-front based on average costs of installs. A simple ROI calculator will show the break-even year, 10-year and 20-year savings.
The electrical output data is generated using the National Renewable Energy Lab's (NREL) PvWatts2 simulation for solar panels. This simulation is very robust, and takes into accounts seasonal variations in insolation, panel tilt, system losses from inefficiencies, and much more. Consequently, the numbers generated for monthly and yearly electrical output are generally quite accurate, though still idealized. However, cost and ROI is much harder to normalize, and will be highly variable between systems even within the same region due to install costs, location, shading, electrical consumption of the purchaser, etc. Costs and ROI data should be taken as a highly idealized average, but is a good place to start to get a frame of reference for average or typical costs.
The application is written using Flask and Python as the server-side framework and language, and HTML/CSS and Javascript as the front-end languages. The application uses both synchronous and asynchronous HTTP requests to gather and present data.