Axaopoulos et al.

International Journal of Energy and Environmental Engineering 2014, 5:1

http://www.journal-ijeee.com/content/5/1/1

ORIGINAL RESEARCH Open Access

Accuracy analysis of software for the estimation

and planning of photovoltaic installations
Petros J Axaopoulos1, Emmanouil D Fylladitakis2* and Konstantinos Gkarakis1

Abstract
As the use of photovoltaics expands, with more and more commercial and residential users investing on solar
energy systems around the globe, there is substantial demand for relatively simple, easy-to-use software packages
for the planning and performance estimation of photovoltaic installations by installers and architects. In this paper,
the calculative accuracy of TRNSYS, Archelios, Polysun, PVSyst, PV*SOL and PVGIS is being examined in comparison
to the real electrical energy generated by a grid-connected 19.8kWp photovoltaic installation. The assessment has
been performed by using the climatic data which have been recorded at the site of the real photovoltaics (PV) park
over the same calendar year. Our results displayed that the software packages tend to overestimate the global irradiation
received by the PV modules but still significantly underestimate the electrical energy generated by the installation.
Keywords: Photovoltaics; Solar irradiation; PVGIS; Energy Economics; PVSyst; PV*SOL; TRNSYS; Archelios; Polysun

Background As such, demand for software capable of performing

Albeit they are plagued by problems such as intermit- energetic and economic analysis quickly and accurately
tency and relatively low efficiency [1], photovoltaics (PV) was evident.
are the most popular form of renewable energy for elec- This commercial demand has led into the development
tricity generation and their market penetration is expected of many PV analysis and planning software packages,
to continually rise globally over the next few years [2]. mainly designed to be used for the composing of technical
The high demand has led to extensive research during the and economical essays by the PV installers and architects,
past few decades, improving the efficiency and other per- especially during the initial design phases of a project [16].
formance characteristics of the PV panels while significantly Despite the vast growth of PV installations and the
reducing their cost [3]. Due to their inert nature and mo- ever-growing number of available commercial software
tionless operation, PV systems are ideal for use in or near for their simulation and economic assessment, there has
populated areas [4], especially on commercial and residen- been little to no research regarding the calculative ac-
tial buildings [5,6], making them a vital addition to smart curacy of commercial PV simulation software packages.
grids [7]. Small, distributed PV installations are considered Research studies are focused on developing methods which
to be a vital component to sustainable architecture [8]. can be used to create new software packages, such as new
The largest percentage of the PV market is held by pri- simulation techniques [17,18], models which can be used to
vate owners and small businesses, investing on small to compute the effects of shading [19], methodologies which
medium grid-connected installations or building integrated may be used for the estimation of solar irradiance on
systems [9,10], with the interest on small-scale residential inclined surfaces [20], the modelling of PV panels [21]
applications continually growing across the globe [11-14], and the simulation of the power electronics involved in
especially in the EU after the 2010/31/EU Energy Per- PV installations [22,23]. Undoubtedly, commercial PV simu-
formance Building Directive [15], which suggests that lation software packages are using combinations of these
buildings should require ‘nearly zero energy’ by 2020. models and methodologies, each of which is scientifically
sound; however, their accuracy as a complete software pack-
age against real-world data has not been assessed. Still,
* Correspondence: [email protected]
2
Electronic and Computer Engineering Department, School of Engineering commercial software packages are being used as the basis
and Design, Brunel University, Uxbridge, London, Middlesex UB8 3PH, UK of many scientific studies and papers [24-28]; therefore,
Full list of author information is available at the end of the article

© 2014 Axaopoulos et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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their accuracy should be thoroughly examined against Climatic data

real-world data and for various conditions. The climatic data of the area were extracted from the
In this article, we will be comparing the actual irradiance PV park log files, all in hourly values and for a full calen-
and energy data which have been extracted from the moni- dar year (Additional file 1). These files contain the global
toring station of a 19.8-kWp grid-connected PV installation irradiation received on horizontal surface (H), the irradi-
to the results obtained from commercial PV simulation ation on the inclined surface at 30° (H30), the ambient
software packages which had the climatic data of the temperature (Tav), the module temperature (Tc) and the
installation imported. wind speed (Uw). These data which have been converted
to average monthly values are shown in Table 2.

Photovoltaic installation
For the means of this study, long-term performance data The software
have been extracted from an operational PV park in The climatic data extracted from the operational park have
order to be compared to the artificial data created by the been entered into five commercial software packages which
software. This free-standing PV park is situated at an open are available to us and are being alphabetically summarized
field at the foothills of Rhodope, near the settlement in Table 3. PVGIS is not a commercial software and has
Dionis, in Thrace, Greece. The land plot measures nearly been included in this study only in order to assess its
2,000 m2 large, without any obstructions which could accuracy as a quick assessment online tool.
cause shading near the installation. The exact geographical TRNSYS is capable of receiving hourly climatic data,
coordinates of the location are 40.98 N, 25.56 E. and thus, the radiation on the inclined plane H30, the
Table 1 displays the specifications of each of the 90 ambient temperature T and the wind speed U have all
SILCIO SE220 photovoltaic panels used by the PV park, been imported as is, in their hourly values.
which have a total surface of 150 m2. Steel mounts are Archelios is the only commercial software which re-
being used, placing the panels at a tilt angle of 30° and quires the input of the global, diffuse and direct irradi-
facing the true south. The installed power of the PV ation on the horizontal plane, as well as the ambient
park is 19.8 kW, directly connected to the low voltage temperature and wind speed, in monthly values, if the
(230 V AC) distribution grid. For the means of connect- user seeks to generate a custom climatic data file. As
ing to the grid, three SMA Sunny Mini Central 7000TL such, the global irradiation on the horizontal should be
have been used, each with a maximum power output of split to diffuse and direct using either a mathematical
7 kW and an efficiency of 97.7% at maximum output. model or the conversion ratio available for the area of
Two strings of 15 panels each have been connected per the installation. As this study explores the accuracy of
inverter, leading to an inverter configuration oversized the simulation software assuming that it will be used as
by about 6%. a daily tool and from users without high scientific back-
The park has a Sunny Sensorbox weather station in- ground, the simplest option has been selected, and that
stalled, which features Si module sensors for the global is using the diffuse-to-global ratio available for the area,
irradiation, PT100 sensors for the panel and ambient which has been extracted from climatic maps. The results
temperature, as well as a multi-directional anemometer are shown in Table 4.
for the wind speed. The solar irradiation sensors have Polysun requires the entry of the monthly global irradi-
been calibrated with the help of Kipp & Zonen CM 11 ation on the horizontal plane, ambient temperature and
pyranometers [29]. wind speed. PVSyst has similar requirements, but the
wind speed is treated as optional. The monthly values of
Table 1 SILCIO SE220 PV panel specifications these three data sets have been entered into both of these
Performance figure STC rating software packages.
Pnom 220 W PV*SOL requires the entry of the monthly global irradi-
Vmpp 28.8 V
ation on the horizontal plane and ambient temperature.
Even though the algorithm of the software does take wind
Impp 7.65 A
speed into account, there is no option to manually enter it
Voc 36.4 V into the software while creating a custom climatic data set
Isc 8.3 A and the software appears to be randomly generating wind
NOCT 39.95 °C profiles based on the location of the installation.
μVoc −0.30%/°C For the case of the PVGIS, which does not support the
μΙsc +0.047%/°C
manual input of any climatic data, the integrated Climate-
SAF database data is being used. The estimated total
μPmpp −0.39%/°C
system losses have been entered to be 7%.
Axaopoulos et al. International Journal of Energy and Environmental Engineering 2014, 5:1 Page 3 of 7
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Table 2 Climatic data

Month Global irradiation Global irradiation on 30° Ambient temperature Module temperature Wind speed
(H) (kWh/m2) (H30) (kWh/m2) (T) (°C) (TC) (°C) (U) (m/s)
Jan 56.4 83.7 2.56 10.16 1.08
Feb 60.2 80.64 2.83 10.54 0.90
Mar 117.6 140.6 8.52 17.95 1.40
Apr 154.4 163.9 14.27 24.07 2.26
May 179.8 174.2 19.02 29.56 1.79
Jun 219.6 206 25.16 36.83 1.49
Jul 224.6 213 28.78 40.84 1.57
Aug 190.1 196 27.13 38.44 1.32
Sep 156.9 182.8 22.60 33.58 1.27
Oct 101.0 134.3 18.74 28.11 1.72
Nov 62.3 95 12.54 20.85 1.67
Dec 37.8 59.3 4.96 12.09 1.35

Methods data acquired by the logs of the installation, we used the

In all of the software used for the means of this study, following statistical parameters: root mean square error
three identical types of losses are taken into account: the (RMSE), mean absolute deviation (MAD), absolute per-
cable losses which have been calculated to be 1%, the centage error (MAPE) and model efficiency (EF).
module mismatch losses which have been estimated to The root mean square error is given by Equation 1:
be 2% and the system quality losses which have been
found to be 1.7%. The losses of the inverter are also be- sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
1 X n
ing calculated by the model included in each software. RMSE ¼ ðH t −F t Þ2 ð1Þ
For the case of PVGIS, as the software does not calculate n t¼1
the losses of an inverter, additional losses of 2.3% have
also been added, bringing the total estimated losses up Where Ht is the recorded value, Ft is the value derived
to 7%. All other losses that each commercial software from the simulation software and n is the number of pe-
may have the ability to calculate have been disregarded. riods (months). RMSE gives the deviation between the
The PV park is being treated as a free-standing installa- experimental and the calculated values, and it should be
tion with good ventilation. as close to zero as possible.
We should note that the aforementioned software
packages are being assessed only for their calculative ac- Table 4 Diffuse-to-global ratio, calculated beam and
curacy. Other criteria, such as the user interface, features diffuse irradiation on the horizontal surface
and support, are beyond the scope of this study. The Month Hd/H Beam irradiation Hb Diffuse irradiation Hd
(kWh/m2) (kWh/m2)
final selection of a commercial software package should
be a process based on multiple criteria. Jan 0.51 27.6 28.8
In order to compare the goodness of fit between the Feb 0.5 30.1 30.1
data calculated from the simulation software and the Mar 0.44 65.9 51.7
Apr 0.41 91.1 63.3
Table 3 Photovoltaics simulation software examined May 0.33 120.5 59.3
Software name Version Type Jun 0.31 151.5 68.1
TRNSYS 16.1 Simulation Jul 0.27 164.0 60.6
Archelios 13.01 Analysis and planning Aug 0.27 138.8 51.3
Polysun 6.013 Analysis and planning Sep 0.33 105.1 51.8
PVSyst 6.0.6 Analysis and planning Oct 0.42 58.6 42.4
PV*SOL 6.0 Analysis and planning Nov 0.47 33.0 29.3
PVGIS 4/6/2013 Online quick assessment Dec 0.62 14.4 23.4
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Figure 1 Monthly energy generation of the PV park and as calculated by the simulation applications.

The MAD parameter is used to measure statistical dis- Results and discussion
persion and is given by Equation 2: Energy and solar irradiation results
Figure 1 displays the energy generation of the real PV
1X
n park and the figures which each software calculated for
MAD ¼ jH t −F t j ð2Þ a full calendar year. TRNSYS, which is using the irradi-
n t¼1 ation data which have been recorded on the inclined
plane, displays nearly perfect accuracy.
The MAPE parameter, also known as mean absolute As it can be seen from Figure 2, which displays the de-
percentage deviation or MAPD, is used to assess the ac- viation of the calculated results from the real production
curacy of the model and is given by Equation 3: of the PV park, the four commercial PV analysis and
planning applications underestimate the electrical energy
n  
1X  H t −F t  generation of the installation every single month of the
MAPE ¼  100% ð3Þ year, with the sole exception of PVGIS, which is making
n t¼1  H t 
calculations based on its own climatic database and thus
displays great fluctuations each month.
The model efficiency test displays the goodness of fit Figure 3 displays the real global irradiation received by
between the calculated and experimental values, while the the PV modules per month in comparison to that calcu-
highest value it can get is 1. EF is given by Equation 4: lated by each software. Even though the commercial soft-
ware packages underestimate the energy generation of
the PV installation, they actually calculate the global ir-
∑nt¼1 ðH t −zÞ2 −∑nt¼1 ðF t −H t Þ2
EF ¼ ð4Þ radiation received by the panels of the PV park to be
∑nt¼1 ðH t −zÞ2 higher than the real global irradiation on the inclined
plane, as it can be seen in Figure 4. This is a paradox, in-
Where z is the mean value of the experimental data. dicating that the PV planning and analysis applications

Figure 2 Monthly deviation of the calculated energy generation from the actual of the PV park.
Axaopoulos et al. International Journal of Energy and Environmental Engineering 2014, 5:1 Page 5 of 7
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Figure 3 Monthly global irradiation on the 30° plane as calculated by the simulation applications.

overestimate the solar irradiation received by the PV the main source of the electricity generation calculation
panels of the park even though they underestimate the error comes from the PV cell model which each soft-
electricity generation. It also is interesting to note that ware is using.
even though PVGIS greatly overestimates the global ir- Table 5 displays the annual electrical energy gener-
radiation received by the PV panels, the electricity gener- ation and annual global irradiation received on the
ation results are significantly lower than the real output inclined plane.
of the PV park.
As it can also be seen from Figure 4, while the global ir- Error analysis
radiation received by the PV modules that the software According to the statistical parameters used, the data
packages calculate coincides, for certain months, with the calculated from the simulation software better approxi-
global irradiation recorded by the sensors of the park, the mates the experimental data when the values of RMSE,
calculated electricity generation is significantly underesti- MAD and MAPE are close to zero and the values of EF
mated. As such, while the calculated global irradiation approach unity.
of Archelios for February, Polysun for June, PVSyst for As TRNSYS is utilizing the recorded global irradiation
November and PV*SOL for October coincides with the on the inclined plane directly and suffers no irradiation
actual global irradiation received by the modules, the cal- conversion errors, it was expected that the accuracy of
culated electricity generation during those months is the energy generation simulation would be very high. As
respectively 7.6%, 7.5%, 10.2% and 6.1% lower than that it can been seen from Table 6, the energetic results from
of the real PV park. Therefore, it becomes clear that re- TRNSYS display a model efficiency of 99.7%. Leaving
gardless of the method each application is using to convert TRNSYS aside and moving to the PV planning and ana-
the provided global irradiation on the horizontal plane lysis software, Archelios appears to be delivering the most
into the global irradiation on the plane of the PV modules, accurate energy generation results over the course of a

Figure 4 Monthly deviation of the calculated global irradiation on the 30° plane from the actual.
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Table 5 Generated electricity and global irradiation Table 7 Solar irradiation at 30° error analysis
received on the inclined plane per annum Software RMSE MAD MAPE EF
Annual electricity generation (kWh) H30 (kWh/m2) Archelios 5.41 4.85 3.70% 98.94%
Real data 32,443 1,729 Polysun 4.27 3.52 2.67% 99.31%
TRNSYS 32,299 1,729 PVSyst 4.80 4.29 3.22% 99.21%
Archelios 30,923 1,783 PV*SOL 3.07 2.67 2.47% 99.66%
Polysun 30,200 1,772 PVGIS 18.96 15.07 12.81% 88.00%
PVSyst 29,732 1,768
PV*SOL 29,765 1,744 of the energy generation results was the second worst,
PVGIS 30,980 1,910 excluding PVGIS.

Conclusions
year, followed by Polysun. However, the error becomes The calculative accuracy of five commercial applications
significant, with the MAPE of the results from Archelios has been tested and evaluated through a set of four stat-
surpassing 5.1%. PVSyst and PV*SOL display similar error istical parameters, namely RMSE, MAD, MAPE and EF.
results in all four tests, a MAPE of about 9.1% and a The statistical parameters have been used as indicators
model efficiency of about 92.5%. of the goodness of the estimation of the electrical energy
PVSyst and PV*SOL display similar error results when and the global solar irradiation on the inclined surface.
their energy generation figures are being tested; however, The PV planning and analysis applications generally over-
as it can be seen from Table 7, the latter appears signifi- estimate the irradiation received by the PV panels but, at
cantly more accurate than the former when testing the the same time, underestimate the energy generation.
calculated solar irradiation on the inclined plane. PV*SOL The software which is based and or depends on the
also displays the best received global irradiation calcula- PVGIS irradiation database may be significantly inaccur-
tion accuracy and the lowest irradiation overestimation ate, especially if the study is being performed for specific
out of all the tested applications. Despite it displaying months or short time periods.
the most accurate energetic results, the error analysis Even though the conversion of the global irradiation
indicates that Archelios significantly overestimated the on the horizontal plane to the global irradiation on the
irradiation received by the PV installation. plane of the modules is a source of calculation error, the
Combining both the accuracy of the calculated energy main error source comes from the model of the PV cell.
generation and of the calculated received global irradi- Finally, regardless of the deviations which the commercial
ation, Polysun appears to be the most accurate software software packages displayed, it can be considered that the
amongst the PV estimation and planning applications. results are generally useful and that their features and ease
Polysun displays the second most accurate energy gener- of use makes them a vital tool for planning and quickly
ation results and, at the same time, the second most assessing the performance of a PV installation.
accurate received global irradiation results as well. On Future studies may be performed to assess which parts
the other hand, Archelios displayed the most accurate of the complete simulation model used by the software
energy generation results but had the least accurate packages are significant sources of error. Furthermore,
received global irradiation calculation, significantly over- by evaluating how each simulation parameter affects the
estimating the irradiation received by the system, while accuracy of each model, the simulation models may be
PV*SOL displayed the most accurate calculation of the improved accordingly to provide more accurate results.
global irradiation received by the system but the accuracy As displayed in this paper, the main source of error
comes from the model of the PV cell; future research
may be performed to evaluate the accuracy of the PV
Table 6 Energy generation error analysis
simulation model used by each software package against
Software RMSE MAD MAPE EF
real-world performance data and improve these models
TRNSYS 47.46 29.72 1.24% 99.69% to better reflect real-world performance results. Further-
Archelios 141.23 126.67 5.14% 97.16% more, research on the error induced by the solar irradi-
Polysun 200.34 186.90 7.41% 94.30% ation conversion model of each software package from the
PVSyst 234.23 225.92 9.16% 92.47% horizontal to the inclined plane should be performed, in
PV*SOL 230.92 223.18 9.08% 92.66%
order for the models of each software package to be im-
proved so as to accurately convert the irradiation data
PVGIS 244.88 221.42 9.24% 89.93%
from the horizontal to the inclined plane.
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