eBook
A comprehensive guide on practical feasibility and applicability of the digital twin in the PV industry
A digital twin is an emerging technology in the PV industry. It offers vast capabilities for measuring PV plant performance and making the best engineering decisions.
The digital twin can be used throughout the entire PV plant lifecycle, from design to operation and maintenance, and can serve as a communication tool between various digital processes.
Creating a PV plant digital twin requires specialized PV engineering software, such as PVcase Ground Mount, which can generate design files and structured information models. During the design phase of a new PV plant, it is crucial to use design software compatible with the requirements of the general PV digital twin.
This white paper demonstrates the practical feasibility and applicability of the digital twin in the PV industry and will reveal how PVcase products can help you in digital twin design processes.
"Most amazing software and team!"
I have been working with PVcase GM almost every day for the past 3 years and my experience has been the most positive. From a software very well thought covering most of the repetitive and time-consuming tasks of designing a solar park, to a team that is always listening to the users to keep their product as the leader in the market. I cannot be more grateful for a tool like this, as it allows me to concentrate my work in the details and corroborate my calculations. The ability to just merge it into AutoCAD and work directly there with files you have already make using it a breeze, you just select your area, choose your predefined settings and that's that!
"Enhancing engineers"
PVCase Ground Mount enables engineers to rapidly design, update and review ground mounted projects. I have used PVCase for 4.5 years almost daily and have been consistently impressed by the customer support offered. New features are regularly added and the tutorials provided clearly explain how to use them. When diving into a detailed design the electrical features and Bill of Materials export formed a key part of the process. New members of the team have been able to learn how to use it quickly and it is easy to implement within an existing design team.
"Best in the game"
What I probably appreciate the most about Ground Mount is the fact that is an AutoCAD plugin and gets very handy within my usual workflow. It helps me saving time in decision making in the very initial stages of a project, allowing me to quickly support colleagues with reliable and effective analisys. The interface is very user-friendly and for such reason I do not need customer support often. However, I find customer support to be very effective when needed, plus there are a lot of online tutorial and explanations which are often on point. Along with AutoCAD and PVSyst it is the tool I use the most during my day-to-day working experience.
"Easy to use, it allows you to reduce design times"
We chose this software after a careful evaluation among those available on the market and we have continued to use it for two years. It is very simple to use and allows quick positioning of the module support structures on the ground. Very useful when choosing land for construction authorization because it allows a quick assessment of the installable power and allows you to create a complete and precise layout. Equally useful in the executive design phase as its flexibility of use allows rapid revisions of the layout aimed at optimizing the positioning of the system on the construction site.
"Great program, really satisfied"
Excellent program, intuitive and easy to use, it relies excellently on the CAD software.
I use the program for designing ground-mounted PV systems, the function for calculating slopes is really useful and appreciable, which analyzes the optimal inclination angles on irregular terrain. Again on irregular terrain it allows you to arrange the PV modules avoiding shadow areas. .
It also allows you to extrapolate files in DAE and PVC format so that they can be used to study manufacturability on other programs such as PVSyst.
"A formidable software for the design of photovoltaic systems"
The developers of PVcase have been able to understand the real needs of those who design Ground Mount systems and have developed suitable tools. These are some of the aspects that I appreciated the most:
- The possibility of drawing up both a preliminary project with very few steps using online maps, and detailed executive projects using survey data.
- The terrain import functionality, which adapts to different formats, and allows you to manage the project in 3D.
- Great versatility, which allows you to configure any type of fixed structure or trackers, by entering clear and understandable parameters, thanks also to the various images present in the configuration windows which clearly show the meaning of the parameters.
