Can we simulate sub-hourly solar for a specific year?

I have been reading the "Weather File Formats" page on the SAM Help page ( www.nrel.gov/analysis/sam/help/html-php/index.html?weather_create_tmy3.htm ) in hopes of simulating sub-hourly PV production simulations for specific weather years.As far as I can tell:

1. SMW is the format that allows the user to input weather files at a sub-hourly granularity
2. However, there is a warning in the SMW section which reads "In the current version of SAM, only the physical trough fully supports the SMW file format. The flat plate PV, PVWatts, and high-X concentrating PV models can read data from an SMW weather file, but only with hourly (3600 second) time steps."

Am I right to conclude that there is currently no way to simulate sub-hourly PV production for a specific year? If I am wrong, how does one do it?

Thanks so much,
Sam

Dear Sam,

The copy of the SAM help system on the website that you refer to is out of date. For the current help system, please use the version that comes with the SAM software.

The SAM CSV format replaces the older SMW format and supports time steps between 1 and 60 minutes. The photovoltaic and PVWatts models in the current version of SAM will run at the time steps supported by the weather file format.

Best regards,
Paul.

Thanks very much, Paul! I will start experimenting with that.

Best,
Sam