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bifacialvf

Bifacial PV View Factor model for system performance calculation.
https://github.com/NREL/bifacialvf

Category: Renewable Energy
Sub Category: Photovoltaics and Solar Energy

Keywords from Contributors

photovoltaics transforms measur archiving animals conversion observation optimize projection compose

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Bifacial PV View Factor model for system performance calculation

README.md

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Bifacial PV View Factor model

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DOI

keywords: python, configuration factor model, electrical model mismatch for bifacial modules.

Introduction

bifacialvf is a self-contained view factor (or configuration factor) model which
replicates a 5-row PV system of infinite extent perpendicular to the module
rows. The function returns the irradiance profile along the middle (interior)
row by default, but user interface options include 'first', 'interior',
'last', and 'single'. Single-axis tracking is supported, and hourly output
files based on TMY inputs are saved. Spatial nonuniformity is reported, with
multiple rear-facing irradiances collected on the back of each module row.

Bilinear interpolation code add-on to bifacialvf (description below) to pre-generate IV arrays and bifacial coefficients, and to examine the energy production with back side irradiance mismatch for either a portrait or landscape module.
Included are IV curves and bifacial info for a Yingli (standard) module.

Pre-requisites

This software is written for Python 2 or 3. NREL recommends Anaconda Python.

Install using pip

bifacialvf is at the Python Package Index (PyPI). Use pip to install the latest release in your conda environment or virtualenv:

(myenv)$ pip install bifacialvf

Install development mode from GitHub

For those interested in contributing to bifacialvf:

  1. Clone the bifacialvf repository: $ git clone https://github.com/NREL/bifacialvf.git bifacialvf-main
  2. Navigate to the repository directory where setup.py is located: $ cd bifacialvf-main
  3. Install via pip in development mode: $ pip install -e .

Usage

For usage examples, see the Jupyter notebooks in \docs\

License

bifacialvf open source code is copyrighted by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy and licensed with BSD-3-Clause terms, found here.

Citing bifacialVF

If you use bifacial_radiance in a published work, please cite:

Marion, B., MacAlpine, S., Deline, C., Asgharzadeh, A., Toor, F., Riley, D., … Hansen, C. (2017). A Practical Irradiance Model for Bifacial PV Modules: Preprint. In 44th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference. Washington, DC. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy17osti/67847.pdf. NREL/CP-5J00-67847

Please also cite the DOI corresponding to the specific version of bifacialVF that you used. bifacialvf DOIs are listed at Zenodo.org.

Silvana Ovaitt, Chris Deline, Mark Mikofski, & Nick DiOrio. (2022). NREL/bifacialvf: v0.1.8 Release (v0.1.8). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6369162

Bilinear Interpolation based on the publications:

De Soto, W., Klein, S. A., & Beckman, W. A. (2006). Improvement and validation of a model for photovoltaic array performance. Solar Energy, 80(1), 78–88. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2005.06.010

Marion, B., Rummel, S., & Anderberg, A. (2004). Current--voltage curve translation by bilinear interpolation. Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications, 12(8), 593–607.

bifacialvf: Original code by Bill Marion, Python translation by Silvana Ayala, Updates by Chris Deline & team
Original bilinear interpolation code by Sara MacAlpine, Python translation & Updates by Silvana Ayala
PVMismatch add-on: PVmismatch code from PVMismatch, by Sunpower


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Last synced: 8 days ago

Total Commits: 177
Total Committers: 6
Avg Commits per committer: 29.5
Development Distribution Score (DDS): 0.537

Commits in past year: 13
Committers in past year: 3
Avg Commits per committer in past year: 4.333
Development Distribution Score (DDS) in past year: 0.231

Name Email Commits
cdeline c****e@n****v 82
Silvana Ayala s****a@n****v 70
Mark Mikofski b****o@y****m 16
dependabot[bot] 4****] 5
Ayala s****a@n****v 3
Nick DiOrio n****o@g****m 1

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Issue and Pull Request metadata

Last synced: 2 days ago

Total issues: 31
Total pull requests: 29
Average time to close issues: 5 months
Average time to close pull requests: 4 months
Total issue authors: 12
Total pull request authors: 7
Average comments per issue: 2.13
Average comments per pull request: 1.21
Merged pull request: 24
Bot issues: 0
Bot pull requests: 6

Past year issues: 1
Past year pull requests: 3
Past year average time to close issues: N/A
Past year average time to close pull requests: about 2 months
Past year issue authors: 1
Past year pull request authors: 3
Past year average comments per issue: 0.0
Past year average comments per pull request: 1.33
Past year merged pull request: 2
Past year bot issues: 0
Past year bot pull requests: 1

More stats: https://issues.ecosyste.ms/repositories/lookup?url=https://github.com/NREL/bifacialvf

Top Issue Authors

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  • shirubana (9)
  • mikofski (2)
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  • snowskysun (1)
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Top Pull Request Authors

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Top Issue Labels

  • v0.1.8 (8)
  • bug (2)
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  • 0.2.0 (1)

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Package metadata

proxy.golang.org: github.com/nrel/bifacialvf

  • Homepage:
  • Documentation: https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/nrel/bifacialvf#section-documentation
  • Licenses: other
  • Latest release: v0.1.8 (published about 3 years ago)
  • Last Synced: 2025-04-26T13:33:47.043Z (2 days ago)
  • Versions: 3
  • Dependent Packages: 0
  • Dependent Repositories: 0
  • Rankings:
    • Dependent packages count: 6.999%
    • Average: 8.173%
    • Dependent repos count: 9.346%
pypi.org: bifacialvf

Bifacial PV system evaluation using view factor method

  • Homepage: https://github.com/NREL/bifacialvf
  • Documentation: https://bifacialvf.readthedocs.io/
  • Licenses: BSD
  • Latest release: 0.1.9 (published 8 months ago)
  • Last Synced: 2025-04-26T13:33:46.901Z (2 days ago)
  • Versions: 6
  • Dependent Packages: 0
  • Dependent Repositories: 1
  • Downloads: 482 Last month
  • Rankings:
    • Dependent packages count: 7.31%
    • Forks count: 9.144%
    • Stargazers count: 12.467%
    • Average: 13.311%
    • Downloads: 15.545%
    • Dependent repos count: 22.088%
  • Maintainers (1)

Dependencies

requirements.txt pypi
  • cycler ==0.10.0
  • kiwisolver ==1.2.0
  • matplotlib ==3.2.1
  • numpy ==1.21.0
  • pandas ==0.25.2
  • pvlib ==0.7.0
  • pvmismatch ==4.1
  • py ==1.10.0
  • pyparsing ==2.4.7
  • pytest ==5.4.1
  • pytest-cov ==2.8.1
  • python-dateutil ==2.8.0
  • pytz ==2019.1
  • six ==1.14.0
  • tqdm ==4.45.0
setup.py pypi
  • numpy *
  • pvlib *
  • pvmismatch *
  • tqdm *
.github/workflows/pytest.yaml actions
  • actions/checkout v2 composite
  • actions/setup-python v2 composite

Score: 11.823991977654746