solar-calculator

The Solar Calculator web application enables users to estimate the Nominal Power of a solar installation.

Users can search for an address on a map, draw a solar installation on the map and calculate the Nominal Power of the drawn solar installation.

Live Demo: https://daveboivin.com/solar-calculator/

Setup and run the application

• install a recent version of node.js on your computer
  • you will use this for building, bundling and hosting the web app
• install dependencies: npm install
• build and bundle the application: npx webpack
• run the application: npx http-server src
• From your browser, navigate to the application at http://127.0.0.1:8080

Third party services and tools used

• mapbox components for all map functionality - map panel, geocode search, polygon draw
  • https://docs.mapbox.com/mapbox-gl-js/example/mapbox-gl-geocoder/
  • https://docs.mapbox.com/mapbox-gl-js/example/mapbox-gl-draw/
• turf.js for measuring the area of the polygon drawn on the map
  • https://turfjs.org/
• webpack to bundle all of our .js files
  • https://webpack.js.org/
• node.js for the development javascript runtime
  • https://nodejs.org/en/

Nominal power calculation

• Nominal Power = amount of solar panels * Maximum power of each solar panel
• Nominal Power = (AreaPolygon / AreaSolarPanel) * MaxPowerOfSolarPanel

Known issues

• Refine calculation of total amount of solar panels for a given area to work for area of a polygon. My calculation assumes area is a rectangle.
• Review and refine measurement for Nominal Power as I make several (probably incorrect) assumptions

Next steps

• Utilize real solar data to refine the measurement beyond Standard Test Conditions
  • https://developer.nrel.gov/docs/solar/solar-resource-v1/
• ** implement this equation **
  • https://photovoltaic-software.com/principle-ressources/how-calculate-solar-energy-power-pv-systems

Other sources used

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominal_power_(photovoltaic)
• https://photovoltaic-software.com/principle-ressources/how-calculate-solar-energy-power-pv-systems