Getting Started |  |  |  |

Welcome to the Solar Advisor Model Version SAM 2009! The Solar Advisor Model provides a consistent framework for analyzing and comparing power system costs and performance across the range of solar technologies and markets, from photovoltaic systems for residential and commercial markets to concentrating solar power and large photovoltaic systems for utility markets. For more general information about the model, see About the Solar Advisor Model.

Note. If you are using the current version of the Solar Advisor Model, the layout of the new model should look familiar, but expect to spend some time familiarizing yourself with new features. For an explanation of some differences between the old and new version, see Switching from Earlier Versions.

The Welcome page provides three options for starting a project:

• | Start from a sample template to create a project file by copying data from a template. When you open a template, Solar Advisor creates a project file that contains a complete set of inputs and results from the template. Each template demonstrates either a feature of the software or one of the technologies.

• | Start a new project means creating a project file by selecting a technology and market for your analysis. When you start a new project in this way, all of the variables on the input pages are populated with default values, but no results are displayed on the Results page until you configure and run simulations.

• | Open a recent file to choose from a list of project files. The list contains project files that were saved during previous Solar Advisor sessions.

When you install Solar Advisor, it creates the SAM Projects folder in your default documents folder and uses this as the default location for storing project files. You can change the default project file location by clicking Preferences in the File Menu.

Learning About the Model

The following help topics describe the basic features of the Solar Advisor Model:

• | Projects and Cases: Manage your Solar Advisor analysis projects.

• | Menus: Menu commands.

• | Working with Notes: Store text notes using the notes feature.

• | Entering Inputs: About input pages and conventions used to display input data.

• | Running Simulations: Simulation options.

• | Reviewing Results: About the Results page.

• | File Formats: File formats used to store and transfer data.

Getting Help

The following resources are available for help using the model:

• | For information about any page in the software, press the F1 key, click in the top right corner of the page, or choose Help Contents from the Help menu. In secondary windows, click the Help button for information about the window.

• | The user guide is a version of this Help system in PDF format. It is available on the Help menu and the Solar Advisor Model website.

• | For general information about the model, including a discussion of project costs, references to related publications and a list of frequently asked questions, and other information visit the Solar Advisor Model website: https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/sam/.

• | To participate in the Solar Advisor Model discussion board, join Google Groups using your email address (a Gmail account is not required) at http://groups.google.com/group/sam-user-group.

• | If you have questions comments about the software, please send an email to the support team at solar.advisor.support@nrel.gov. You can also use the User Support command on the Help menu to contact the support team.