Using SAM Fortran / Trnsys files

Hello,

we are working on a tender for a parabolic trough power plant.
Therefore we need to supply a solar performance model to estimate
the output of the plant.

Unfortunately, though we are creating the plant layout in SAM,
we are not allowed to submit a SAM file as solar performance model.
They don't want that as they see SAM as black box and would like to
have a detailed look at the solar performance model instead.

Is there any way we could work around that? Up to version 2013.9.20
there are Fortran files in \exelib\trnsys\source, e.g.
sam_trough_plant_type807.f90

Is it possible to use them to achieve the same functionality?
Or can you think of another approach that might help us?

We came across the EES model published by R. Forristall
( www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/34169.pdf )

In another post Paul mentioned that SAM stopped using TRNSYS starting from
2014.11.24. What are you using instead? And is it possible to access the
models source code directly without SAM or SAMSDK?

Kind regards,
Joe

Dear Joe,
SAM's source code is not available to the public. The FORTRAN code for the older versions could be used with the TRNSYS model. We do provide documentation for the performance models on the Performance Model Documentation page:
sam.nrel.gov/performance
Best regards,

Paul.

Dear Paul,

thanks for your quick answer.

I was looking for other available parabolic trough models and came across
the Excel based tool "Excelergy" that older versions of SAM were based upon.

I think it would be very helpful for our purpose.
Has this model been released to the public?

Kind regards,
Joe

Dear Joe,

The Excelergy model was never released as a public model. The "Empirical Trough" model in SAM is an implementation of the Excelergy model.

Best regards,
Paul.

Hello Paul,

yes, that's what I thought. But is there a chance, that it is considered as
abandonware (sort of) and we could get a copy?
I will take a look at Fortran files mentioned in the Empirical Trough Model
documentation in the meantime.

Kind regards,
Joe