Questions about PV Models

(1) The program recognizes a weather data file for a full year, but I want to simulate the solar panel performance for only a shorter period, say 120 days. Is there a way to make SAM do this?
(2) My dataset contains information on solar insolation, temperature, wind speed, precipitation, and dew point, so I am considering the PV, PVW, or HSPV model. Which would you recommend?
(3) Do you have suggestions of other models besides SAM that might work in my case? It doesn't have to be super sophisticated in terms of the characteristics of the solar PV system, because all I am after is to isolate the impact of different weather patterns.
1. SAM is designed to run a simulation for a single year. If you are interseted in the performance data for a shorter period, you can focus on that period instead of the entire year. If you have your own solar resource data that only covers 120 days, you can try to construct a SAM CSV weather file by inserting your data into a one-year file.
2. See the "Weather Data Elements" topic in SAM's Help system (look under "Weather Data" in the table of contents) for a list of data elements required by each of SAM's performance model. None of the models use precipitation data, so you do not need to include that in your file. It looks like you have sufficient data to use any of SAM's photovoltaic models: The detailed photovoltaic model, PVWatts, or concentrating PV model.
3. The other PV models I am aware of tend toward the more detailed end of the modeling spectrum than SAM (PVSyst, PVSOL, Helioscope, etc.). Once exception is RETScreen, which emphasizes the financial model. HOMER emphasizes economic optimization of the system design. That is not an exhaustive list of models. SolarPro Magazine has published some articles on PV models, including this one , that have more information about different models' capabilities.