Calculating shadings on a subset of the 3D scene
When working on big projects it can be useful to limit the shading calculations to only a smaller part of the system. PVsyst offers an option to run the shading calculations only on a specific subset of all PV tables. This can be interesting either because the whole scene takes too long to simulate, or because you want to focus on a specific subset that has some particularities in design. In PVsyst this calculation option is currently called the partial shading calculation, not to be confused with shades covering part of the DC array, also known as "partial shading". The results of this partial calculation, i.e. the corresponding shading factors, will then be used for the entire PV system, as an extrapolation.
To use this function, you must first enable the partial shading calculations from the menu Tools > Use partial shading calculations.
Once enabled, a new group titled Partial shadings selection appears under the Groups and zones panel, located in the tool panel on the right. Partial shading calculations will be performed for the objects contained within this group.
To assign tables to the Partial Shadings Selection group, you can right-click on the group folder to display all PV objects in the scene and manually select the ones you want to include.
Alternatively, you can select a set of PV modules directly in your scene using either a rectangular or lasso selection, then open the Scene Objects panel on the right, right-click on one of the selected tables, and choose Add to Group → Partial Shadings Selection.
This group is managed like any other Groups of objects except for the fact that it can only contain PV fields. Note that other shading objects will still be used for the calculation, provided their shadow-casting flag is enabled.
!!! warning Incompatibility with the "module layout" mode This mode can be enabled provided that the shading calculation mode is either "linear" or "according to strings". The "module layout" shading calculation mode is not yet compatible with the partial shading calculations mode.
Output in the report
When you generate a simulation report with partial calculations, the percentage of PV area used for the calculations is mentioned near the shadings details:
