Masdar Institute launches a new online tool at WFES 2016 to simulate performance of future Solar PV Plants in UAE

ABU DHABI, 21st January, 2016 (WAM) -- The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, an independent, research-driven graduate-level university focused on advanced energy, and sustainable technologies, yesterday announced the launch of the UAE Photovoltaic Performance Simulator, a web-based geographic information systems tool for modelling and simulating the performance of utility-scale PV power stations in the UAE. Developed by the Masdar Institute Research Center for Renewable Energy Mapping and Assessment, ReCREMA, this is the first tool of this kind available for the solar PV industry in the UAE. The tool will be useful for solar plant developers and investors to simulate the performance of future plants with different solar technologies, allowing them to make better-informed choices regarding both the technology and location for future solar energy plants. This simulator is expected to also increase the knowledge about the UAE’s PV potential as well as investor confidence, thereby attracting more investors to its solar energy market. Initially, the tool will be publicly available for a limited period of time. However, after the initial period, full usage of all tool functions will be limited to subscribers. The simulator development work was done under the guidance of Dr. Hosni Ghedira, Director, ReCREMA. A demonstration of the tool’s functions and features was presented on the side-lines of the World Future Energy Summit 2016, which is being organised as part of the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week 2016 at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, ADNEC, from 18th-21st January 2016. Officials from ReCREMA, Masdar Institute, the International Renewable Energy Agency, IRENA, and solar industry stakeholders were present on the occasion. Dr. Steve Griffiths, Vice President of Research, Masdar Institute, said, "This novel web-based GIS tool will help solar PV plant developers make optimal project sighting and technology selection choices. Solar PV project investors screening for commercial potential will benefit from the increased confidence in plant performance that this tool will provide. In this way, we believe the simulator developed at Masdar Institute’s ReCREMA will support the UAE’s renewable energy production goals." The UAE PV Performance Simulator is based on locally-validated optical and thermal models as well as solar resource and meteorological databases previously developed for the UAE at ReCREMA. Based on user inputs on the user-specified area, timeframe, and plant design of interest, the tool generates plant designs for every site location. It also maps the spatial variability of performance indicators at various time-scale resolutions, monthly, daily and hourly. These indicators include the plant's capacity factor, performance ratio, and yield over the timeframe of interest. At present, there is no open-access tool available where the performance of a user-defined PV power station can be mapped. Most available tools produce only single site estimates, but no maps. Furthermore, ReCREMA has unique access to the ground measurements of irradiance, based on which the solar resource model has been tailored to the specific climate conditions of the UAE. Therefore, the accuracy of the UAE PV Performance Simulator can be expected to be better than the other (single site-based) tools which are not based on local ground-measured irradiance data. The range of user inputs offered in this simulator is wider than what is normally offered in other performance modelling tools. Dr. Ghedira explained, "The UAE PV Performance Simulator that we have developed is relatively complex and runs on Masdar Institute servers. It is meant for the first steps of feasibility analysis of utility-scale power plant projects. Since it is based on calibration from local ground-measured irradiance data, it is highly accurate. This tool cannot be compared to existing tools that are based on simplistic PV performance models and satellite data." – Emirates News Agency, WAM -http://www.wam.ae/en/news/emirates/1395290544951.html