First time user with a few question

I am using SAM for a class on Solar Power. I had a few questions about some aspects of the SAM.First I was wondering about the shading aspect of the model. Does it already take nighttime into account or do I need to set 10pm-7am as shaded times according to time of year. Also I was wondering if anyone has any recomendations on figuring out some plausible numbers for the Payment Incentives part because Im not sure where to start with it. Finally I was wondering if anyone has a comment on the installer margins and overhead in the system costs tab. The model set it at $1.42 perW but that seems extreme when I look at it. Anyone have better suggestiong for installer margins. Any help is much appreciated


Photovoltaic, Financing and Incentives,

Are you modeling a solar energy system? If so, the weather file stores hourly solar resource data, which varies with time of day and year. At night the solar radiation is zero, so you should not try to use the shading model to represent the night-time resource.

A good source of information about incentives is the DSIRE website .

For cost information, we've provided some resources here . Otherwise, you can try searching the web for keywords like "renewable energy cost" or "photovoltaic cost."

Would you mind telling us what course you are taking? It is helpful for us to know what schools are using SAM.

Best regards,
Paul.

The course I am taking is Fundamentals of Solar Cells at the University of Toledo. As a final project we were told to find LCOE for different types of solar cells and our professors recommended this as a good place to do calculations.