solar simulation software

hot_rod

PolySun or T-sol, does anyone have an opinion or preference?/

ABSolar

software choices

Retscreen & Pathfinder assistant are all I can afford....

Karl_Northwind

Restcreen and excel

I just built an excel calculator that gives numbers to input to the "percent of month used" and temperature ranges, and have gotten numbers very close  (within a couple of percent) of what polysun and tsol have given.



it's essentially just a cheat for retscreen to let retscreen do what it does, only with more detailed loads month to month.



Karl

Fortunat

I use Polysun

Rod,



I use Polysun (designer) but haven't used T sol so I can't make a real comparison. The first couple years with Polysun were frustrating because it was still rather buggy, especially in the english units, but it seems to have improved and as they add more US hardware it gets better and better.



The designer version is very powerful (but also rather expensive). We're happy with it overall though; my only big frustration at this point is that when I make a new template in designer mode, my colleague (who has just the light version) can't even open it. So in the light version you are stuck with just the generic templates that come with the software.



As I said, I've seen reports from T sol, but never used it myself so I can't actually give you a comparison.



~Fortunat

www.revisionenergy.com