Software for the renewable energy development 1

[richg1]

I came across an interesting piece of software the other day called Ecotect by Square One (

http://squ1.com/).

It appears, on preliminary review, to provide some good tools to predict sun shadowing and annual solar energy on a surface, which is of particular interest for solar power plant design. And, before you shout me down for spruiking software, the industry I work in.

If anyone knows of other renewable energy specific software packages maybe we can get some honest appraisals here?

Rich

 

[ykee]

I've had really good success with RETScreen:

http://www.retscreen.net/ang/home.php

It has a really broad range of technologies for almost any renewable energy, and a decent weather database. I also really like the financial side of it. I'm not always sure that the numbers that they use as a base are realistic though, and I don't think it does hourly analysis.

 

[BIPVguy]

.........and the most important thing, the RETSCREEn is free of charge.

You might be interested in RADIANCE also.
Cheers

 

[ykee]

Just to clarify: when I said I was uncertain about the numbers, I was referring to $$ costs that used. You will need to adjust those to compensate for your particualar situation.