This is currently only available for accounts with Sighten internal (De Soto) production methodology. We will roll out the capabilities shortly for accounts with PVWatts.
Sighten has added a Google Project Sunroof tab to the sidebar found in the project phase. The sunroof tab allows you to view the solar access value (SAV), the tilt and orientation factor (TOF), and the total, solar resource factor (TSRF) on a panel by panel basis for sites with Google Project Sunroof data available (for more on determining whether sunroof data is available for your site, visit How do I tell if Project Sunroof shading data is available for my site?). The sunroof tab also allows you to manually extend Project Sunroof’s data coverage for your project site, so you can ensure actual SAV’s are used in your system calculations - even for multi-building projects!
The Google Sunroof tab is located at the bottom of the project phase sidebar (highlighted in orange above). Selecting the tab will open an action box displaying an “Update Sunroof Coverage” button and a “Show sunroof coverage” on/off slider. It will also provide visual representation of the solar access value on a per panel basis, as well as display the area sunroof coverage is being drawn from (the red circle).
Viewing Individual Panel Values
As prompted by the black overlay, at this stage you can select an individual panel to see SAV, TOF, and TSRF values for that panel exclusively. Simply click on the panel you wish to analyze to generate these values. The panel you’ve selected will display a thin black outline.
Note that the aggregate array values are shown above the “Selected Panel” values for comparison in the black overlay highlighted below.
Expanding Sunroof Coverage
In some situations, particularly with large or multi-building projects, you may wish to expand the area of sunroof coverage. This area is displayed once in the sunroof tab by a red circle, the radius of which is initially generated by the size of the building or site you’ve selected for your project. This radius, and thus the size of the circle and coverage, can be changed by selecting “Update Sunroof Coverage” in the white action box.
In this example, the radius generated is 82.02 ft. As you can see in the white action box, there are two ways to update the area of your sunroof coverage. First, you can click and drag one of the white dots located on the outside of the circle to the cover the area you wish (up to a radius of 328 feet). Alternatively, you can manually enter the length of the radius, but be sure to click to the blue check next to the radius text box to confirm the selection. As the red text notes, the new radius must be larger than the automatically generated radius length to update - selecting a smaller radius would only restrict the Project Sunroof data that is already being incorporated into the system calculations.
To learn more about the basics of Google Project Sunroof’s functionality within Sighten, please visit How does the Google Project Sunroof shading feature work?.