ASSET Software
New Project
If you have not downloaded the photos from you camera to your computer, please do so now. Once the photos are stored in a folder on your computer, double-click the ASSET shortcut icon (or run ASSET.exe) to start the ASSET software. The screen shown in Figure 8 will appear.
Figure 8:
From the menus, select File→New Project, and enter a name for the survey. In V1.30 and earlier, if using Windows Vista operating system, you will need to select a different folder to save your project files besides C:/Program Files/ASSET because Vista may not allow you to write to the C:/Program Files directory.
The ASSET software incorporates the PVWatts program, written by Bill Marion of the National Renewal Energy Laboratory (NREL) under contract to the Department of Energy (DOE). The program uses hourly historical data from the TMY2 data set to calculate energy captured by the array. It requires that the following preferences be entered.
"Project preferences" consist of radio buttons, input fields, and drop-down menus. Set your project preferences using the following guidelines:
- State and City Selection
- This preference group is listed first because it sets a few of the other preferences groups. The ASSET software contains historical irradiance data for 239 cities. Using the list boxes for the state and city, select the city nearest to the survey site. The program will look up the latitude, longitude, elevation, and magnetic declination and display it. You may edit the latitude value to match the survey site.
- ASSET Angle
- Click the radio button for the angle (from the horizon) of the ASSET tool when the survey was taken. For most places in North America, an angle of 22.5° is recommended. In a 7X2 or 9X2 photo set, this angle corresponds to the first row of photos -- the second row will be 22.5° greater.
- Array Configuration
- You can select between fixed, 1-axis, and 2-axis configurations
- The tilt of the array must be between 0 and 90° and doesn't apply to 2-axis trackers
- The range of azimuth values is 90° to 270°, and only applies to a fixed type of array.
- Photo Set
- The size of the photo set must match the photo set that you will be trying to analyze.
- A description of the different photo sets and when to use them can be found on the next page.
- Larger photo sets will take longer to analyze.
- Camera Selection
- From the menu, select Preferences→Camera, and select the camera type. The M1063 camera is include with ASSETs built after 3/09, the C310 camera is included with ASSETs built between 9/07 and 3/09, the C300 before 9/07. The camera model number is listed on the front and back of the digital camera. The three cameras have slighty different fields of view, therefore selecting the correct camera is important for proper alignment of photos in the panorama.
- Saving Your Preferences
- Save your preferences as the default for new projects by selecting from the menu, Preferences→Save Preferences.