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How to Design with OpenSolar

Preparations for Workshop 2

1. Why do we use OpenSolar?

2. OpenSolar: Set up your free OpenSolar account

3. OpenSolar: Create a project for your site

4. OpenSolar: Input contact information & energy use

5. OpenSolar: Enter your monthly energy use

8. OpenSolar: Select imagery for your site

7. OpenSolar: Place your first panel

8. OpenSolar: Design your array

9. OpenSolar: Refine your array design

10. OpenSolar, Assess cost and performance

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We’d ask you to work through the following sections of “pre-work” prior to our time together in Workshop 2. This pre-work should take about 4 hours. If you hit a snag or have questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We’re here to help!

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1. Why do we use OpenSolar?

OpenSolar runs on top of National Renewable Energy Lab’s System Advisor Model (SAM) – the gold standard for modeling solar and storage performance.
The work you do with OpenSolar this week provides enough information to accurately assess your potential annual energy yield.
OpenSolar is not locked into to a particular supplier’s parts or system. HAREI is customizing the parts libraries in our OpenSolar account - HAREI2024 - to reflect what’s been proven to be reliable in independent testing and what’s available to us at reasonable prices and quantities.
Once you’ve completed a basic design, it can easily be “duplicated” to make up to three versions to explore alternate panels, inverters, battery options, etc.
Finally, we’ve designed a GoogleScript that can use OpenSolar’s published Application Program Interface (API) to extract your design information and use it to generate your Utility Interconnect application and materials estimate

Preparations for Workshop 2

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2. OpenSolar: Set up your free OpenSolar account

Go to https://www.opensolar.com/

Set up your own free OpenSolar account. (Make up a company name.)

Pay HAREI’s $40 dues ( https://www.harei.org/contact ) to become a HAREI member.

When you become a member, we’ll add your credentials to our HAREI2024 OpenSolar account. By building your project within our account, you can access our component libraries and we can more easily collaborate with you to develop your design.

When you log into OpenSolar, click the “gear” in the upper right corner, and select HAREI2024 as your “Organization.

Preparations for Workshop 2

The next section walks you through designing your array. Try it!

If you get stuck, just reach out to us.

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3. OpenSolar: Create a project for your site

Once you’re in HAREI2024, it will take you about an hour to walk through the first five steps of the OpenSolar Tour. Click on the big orange button to “Start Tour”.

Then, once again, click “Start Tour” on the pop-up window.

Enter and confirm your street address. Click “Next.”

Center your site on the screen. Click “Next”

Click the orange “Create Project” button in the upper right hand corner. Click “Next.”

Preparations for Workshop 2

Enter your Street Address

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4. OpenSolar: Input contact information & energy use

Type in your First Name, Last Name, Phone, and Email. Click “Next.”

To enter your monthly power consumption

Click on “Energy”

Click and hold down your mouse button on the upper right corner of the pop-up and drag the pop-up with your mouse to the left and downward to allow you to fully see the pulldown menu that allows you to choose between Annual and Monthly input.

Note: It is this same click / hold / drag technique

that you’ll use to position panels on your array site.

Since you now have monthly energy use data from Eversource, we’d suggest you select “Monthly Consumption” from the pulldown.

Preparations for Workshop 2

First Last Phone Email@...

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5. OpenSolar: Enter your monthly energy use

Just as you did a moment ago, click and hold down your mouse button on the upper right corner of the Consumption Info pop-up and drag it to the right and downward to get a clear view of the table for entering monthly values of energy use.

Enter each month’s energy use as a number with no commas and no decimal points,

1234

Numbers shouldn’t have comma’s 1,234
Numbers shouldn’t have decimal points 1234.56

When you’ve finished, click “Next.”

Preparations for Workshop 2

1234

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6. OpenSolar: Select imagery for your site

Its now time to design your system!

Click the “Design” button at the top

If 3D data is available to you, OpenSolar will offer that as an option. Otherwise, you’ll be designing with 2D satellite imagery from either Bing or Google. For now, select the default option presented by OpenSolar. We might revisit this selection later if the imagery is too grainy or dated.

Click the “Select” button at the lower right.

You’ll be offered another chance to re-center your imagery. The animation shows you how to change this…. But note, this isn’t critical. If your array site is visible in the window, just click Next

Preparations for Workshop 2

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7. OpenSolar: Place your first panel

Congratulations! Here is where you start putting panels on your array.

The animation in the pop-up menu shows you how this is done.

Click on the yellow button in the upper left.

A panel appears which follows your mouse.

Move your mouse over to your array site and click on a corner of that surface. The panel will be placed at the location you clicked.
If you have 2D imagery:

Click on the button and rotate the panel such that it is aligned with your ridge line, and the yellow line points towards the sun.
As you did before, click and drag to move to the edge of your array

Preparations for Workshop 2

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8. OpenSolar: Design your array

Now that you have your first panel up and aligned, it is easy to replicate that for additional panels on your site.

Simply click the phantom white-outlined panels that are next to your first panel. A click will turn on an adjacent panel. Another click will turn it off.

Click “Next” to dismiss the Pop-Up window showing the animation.

A pop-up will appear for setting pricing, but we’ve got a few other things we need to do first. click “Stop Tour.” on the bar at the bottom.

A new pop-up will ask if you are sure that you want to stop the tour. Click “Quit.”

Preparations for Workshop 2

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9. OpenSolar: Refine your array design

Refine your array

The Azimuth was set when you aligned your array with your roof ridge line

You’ll probably need to key in the slope of your roof. The default is 20 degrees. That is relatively flat. A typical roof is 33 degrees, and a steep roof is 45 degrees. We’ll show you how to measure that in Workshop 3.

The panels will need to be spaced out a bit to allow for mounting hardware and thermal expansion. Plug in .45 for Gap X and .45 Gap Y for now. We may refine that later after your final panel selection

Next, click “off” any panels that could interfere with roof obstacles like skylights

Finally, click “Save” in the upper right hand corner.

Preparations for Workshop 2

.45

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10. OpenSolar, Assess cost and performance

Click the back arrow at the top left of the panel pane you were just working
Click on Summary, and note the top level performance and rough cost estimate. If you scroll down, you’ll find a series of monthly plots showing average daily solar performance against your typical daily consumption.
Midway across the top, click on “Online Proposal.” Click “Continue to Proposal.”

Take a look at the month-by-month system performance –vs- your historical monthly energy consumption
Check out the environmental benefits
Note the break-even point – the point in time where your savings equals your costs. After this “break-even” point, you’re getting “free energy.”

Important: Review these results with other family stakeholders.

Gain consensus on the scope, cost, and timing of your desired project.

Preparations for Workshop 2

‘<= Rough cost estimate

‘<= Annual Output

Break-Even