ReEDS: Distributed PV profiles

This record provides modeled hourly distributed photovoltaic (PV) capacity factor profiles for the contiguous United States (U.S.), generated using the National Solar Radiation Database (NSRDB), System Advisor Model (SAM), and Renewable Energy Potential (reV) model. These profiles are used in the Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) model. Additional details are provided in the ReEDS documentation. Technology assumptions Capacity factor profiles represent the average of residential and commercial distributed PV profiles and use the following assumptions: Fixed roof mount with 16° tilt and 180° azimuth Inverter loading ratio: 1.21 DC losses: 10.4% Inverter efficiency: 96% for residential, 98% for commercial Values are given in units of $[MW_{AC,grid}/MW_{AC,nameplate}]$, where $MW_{AC,grid}$ is the post-inverter output to the grid and $MW_{AC,nameplate}$ is the post-inverter PV array capacity. Temporal resolution All capacity factor profiles are at hourly resolution in U.S. Central Standard Time (UTC–06:00) and represent instantaneous values on the hour. The profiles span 15 weather years (2007–2013 + 2016–2023). For leap years, the final day of the year (December 31) is dropped, such that each year contains 8760 hours. Spatial resolution Capacity factor profiles are resolved for individual U.S. counties. Columns are labeled as p{5-digit county FIPS code}. File structure Capacity factor profiles are saved as hierarchical Data Format (HDF5) files. The following Python function can be used to read a capacity factor .h5 file into a pandas dataframe: import h5py import pandas as pd def read_cf_profile(filepath): """ Read a CF profile from `filepath` and return a pandas dataframe. Usage: `df = read_profile('/path/to/filename.h5')` """ encoding = 'utf-8' with h5py.File(filepath, 'r') as f: df = pd.DataFrame( f['data'][:], columns=pd.Series(f['columns']).str.decode(encoding), index=f['index_0'], ) df.index = pd.to_datetime( pd.Series(df.index, name='datetime').str.decode(encoding) ) return df